


Always in Motion

by maq_moon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Chekov's Gun but it's a book, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Mystery, Psychological Horror, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22338823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maq_moon/pseuds/maq_moon
Summary: Dr. Rey Jackson, archaeologist, is mistaken for a celebrity and given an upgrade to Business Class on her incredibly long flight. Unfortunately, she's been seated next to the douchebag who's been pestering her for the last two hours. More unfortunately, she finds a letter in her carry-on bag telling her that their plane is about to go down. The worst part?The letter was written by Luke Skywalker, a man who has been dead for years.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 68
Kudos: 96
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	1. --

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenOfCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/gifts).



> [Reylo Fanfiction Anthology](https://reylofanfictionanthology.tumblr.com): Write a minimum of 1000 words--  
> Me: So how's **tWeNtY tHoUsAnD**
> 
> *cough* This is for the delightful [Dot](https://leofgyth.tumblr.com).  
> My dear recipient offered three prompts. Why, I wondered, should I use only one of them? I took one to the letter and used the spirit of the other two. I ~~got carried away~~ am an overachiever.
> 
> Dot, Queen of all flowering carrots, I sincerely hope that this is the "funny horror mystery" you wanted. 
> 
> CW: Animal horror. No death, but if you want to avoid this, stop reading when Rey falls asleep. Start again when she says, "Open it!"  
> CW: An airplane accident. If you want to avoid this, stop reading at, "That was when the fasten seat belt light came on". Begin again at the line break.  
> CW: Corpses. To avoid this, don't read the paragraph beginning, "Before anything else..."

“Oh my God, are you--”

 _That girl from the movie?_ Rey silently supplied. _The reboot that ruined my childhood?_ Or perhaps, _the one with the alien who turned a girl into flowers?_ Or, less frequently, _the one that feminism ruined?_

She was not, in fact, that girl from those movies. She was an archaeologist. At present, she was a very tired archaeologist who didn’t want to be asked for a selfie or an autograph. She just wanted to sit in this corner and read whatever nonsense Danielle Steele had written and doze off for a few hours on her layover to Orlando. But movie fans were like rabid dogs: angry, attention-seeking, and they never left.

“--actually reading that trash?”

Rey dog-eared the page of her book and looked up. Standing over her, sharing her flight gate, was the most insufferable-looking human being she had ever seen. Board shorts, a backwards ball cap, a crisp polo shirt, Dior sunglasses, and a sleek D&G carry-on told her this man’s life story. Entitled, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and probably taking a gap year on Daddy’s dime, Mummy’s little boy looked like he had been a business major who coasted through private school. Gran probably sent him modest cheques on his birthday; maybe he didn’t even bother cashing them.

She cleared her throat and smiled at him. “You’re in my light.” 

He sat in the creaky plastic chair next to hers. Rey inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled slowly through her mouth. She had two hours until boarding; she could sit next to and ignore him for that long. She was flying Coach, and there was no way that he wasn’t flying Business. She opened her book, a hasty airport duty-free purchase.

“I really don’t understand how people can read those books,” he said immediately. “It’s not like there’s any real plot. It’s drivel.”

Rey turned a page.

“I mean, she’s written, like 200 books. She has to have recycled some things. Right? I mean, has she?”

Rey turned a page.

“Has she, though?” he persisted. “Tell me honestly.”

She turned to face him, wisps of messy hair falling from the three buns on the back of her head. “Of course,” she said. “In fact, you’ll find that all two hundred Danielle Steele novels are identical, save the character names. Go buy a couple. You’ll see. Or maybe I’m not a romance novel expert. Maybe this is the first time I’ve ever picked one up. But that’s not possible, is it? When women want pornography, we have to read it, so it follows that we _must_ and _do_. And we’re still shamed for it. When men want pornography, they can get it in any medium they like, guilt-free. Did you know that the oldest writings we’ve found to date are receipts and porn? I bought something to read. Maybe it’s pornographic. I won’t know unless I get to read it.” 

He shifted uncomfortably as she went back to reading. “I’m Ben.”

“I really don’t care.” She took her rolling carry-on, which wobbled precariously on its two remaining wheels, and crossed to the opposite row of seats. 

From the corner of her eye, she spotted them: the fans, the ones who confused her with not one but three different celebrities. She sighed and resigned herself to what was coming next. She didn’t enjoy pretending to be someone else-- not exactly. She did enjoy making people smile. She especially liked when an unflattering photo of her or an uncomplimentary encounter with one of ‘her’ fans hit the tabloids. That was good for a laugh. And if she got a few free meals and discounts? The memory of hunger doesn’t fade. It gnaws at you even years later. The hungry girl Rey had once been seized the day.

Two hours and seven fan encounters later, Rey presented her boarding pass and passport. “We’ve upgraded you to Business,” the woman at the counter said. “Honestly, you’re so humble, flying with regular people. But my daughters love your movies and I guess I do, too. We have the toys from-- Oh! I’m holding up the line! Have a good fly! Flight! Thanks for flying… you know.”

Rey had flown Business exactly once before, when she and her mentor were traveling to Göbekli Tepe. Luke had wanted her to see the world’s oldest temple, and she had been changed by the harsh sands of Turkey. She sank into her leather seat, took a glass of dry champagne, and remembered.

It had been so different from Stonehenge. There were no gray trilithons, but warm, sun-baked brown Ts carved with men and animals alike. “This was made before pottery was invented, Rey. Can you imagine that? You have a magnificent cathedral, but no cups,” Luke had said before turning to a colleague and conversing with him in rapid German. Rey had wandered, dancing around the features and buckets with a practiced grace. The carvings were strange; here a man, there a lion, but something else-- something not native to this area, extinct, or perhaps found only in dreams. Luke had smiled when she told him that later. “Maybe,” he had replied cryptically, “it’s very much alive, but we can only see it in our dreams.” He’d been strangely philosophical that last night, talking about Camus and Eliade. He mentioned his sister, lamented that he had failed her. He’d given Rey a plain envelope, unsealed but packed full. “Keep it close. Don’t open it yet. You’ll know when.” When she woke, he was dead. She flew home immediately, cramped between an engine and a screaming baby.

Her heart ached a little to recall Luke’s blue eyes. She took the edge off with another sip of champagne. Screw books of questionable quality, alcohol was guaranteed to put her to sleep. In the dim twilight of wakefulness, she registered cabin crew and passengers passing by with murmured pardons and the clicking of overhead bins. Her own carry-on was shoved beneath a seat. She laid her head in the crook created by the plane’s wall and her seat, then remembered that she could have extra pillows. She wondered if anyone would wake her if she fell asleep before takeoff.

The seat next to hers hissed as it became occupied. “Well, if it isn’t the movie star,” Business Major Ben drawled. 

“Hello to you, too,” Rey replied. She kept her eyes closed. “Ben.”

“I have been remembered by greatness. Hollywood royalty, even,” he said. She could hear him getting settled, humming off-key as he did. “Except you aren’t. I asked those kids who you were and they started fighting over who they just had a selfie with. One of them punched his sister.” Rey winced. He continued. “So here’s my theory. You went to a liberal arts school and got nowhere with your degree in English, so you’re taking freebies where you can get them like the fries you put on the side because even your parents are sick of bailing you out.”

Rey burst out laughing. She laughed until it hurt to breathe. She, to her shame, may have even said _LOL no_. When tears of mirth pricked the corners of her eyes and a crew member asked if she was ‘quite alright’, her fit downgraded into giggles. “I needed that,” she said. “Exactly one of the things you said was true, but I’m not telling you which one. I’m Rey.”

He took off his ridiculously flashy sunglasses and she could see that he was trying to puzzle out the one fact in his accusations. She could also finally see his eyes, and they were… yes, they were good eyes, one of them highlighted by a thin scar that ran to his neck. This man was a douchebag, and douchebags did not get to have dark, shining eyes that were warm like cocoa and complemented with sexy scars. They also didn’t get to have lips so full and pretty. She consoled herself with the fact that his ears were a bit off-putting, but then he took off his stupid baseball cap. Douchebags were definitely not allowed to have better hair than her, feather-soft and inky black. Now that she saw the whole picture, Rey thought that his face would make an excellent chair.

It had been too long since she’d had a good lay. Flustered, she took two gulps of champagne. Fortunately, he looked equally flustered. He jumped up and rooted around in the overhead bin. Rey tried to close her eyes again, but all she could see was his stupid pretty face and wonder if oral counted towards the Mile High Club. She managed to ignore him until they were taking off. She planned to ignore him the entire ten hour, forty-two minute flight, but she saw what was in his hands and had to speak up.

“Why that book?”

Temples of the World: How the Spiritual and Geological Combine by Luke A. Skywalker was Rey’s favorite book in the world, and not just because she was cited in it (and the back of her head was in one of the color photos). It had been Luke’s final work, published posthumously. He wove together all of his favorite things, things that shouldn’t go together, and made them seem natural. He made normative ideas seem brainless. He made limestone religious, made ley lines sound like they had never been psychobabble, and mixed theology with equal measures of science. It was unprecedented. It had been a global sensation, winning awards and topping best-seller lists. Rey couldn’t have been prouder of Luke.

“The dedication,” was Ben’s curt reply.

It had always struck her as odd. Luke’s previous books had been dedicated to family-- his late wife or his sister or his nephew. Temples wasn’t dedicated to anyone. Instead, he left the world with this:

_No one’s ever really gone. Keep it close & dream. _

_I’m sorry. See you around, kid ;)_

It was the emoji that really threw her. Luke was, frankly, grumpy. He could light up a room when he was excited about something, but he was not a winky-face emoji kind of guy. “Keep it close & dream” had always felt personal to Rey because of the envelope. “No one’s ever really gone” was a common enough platitude (Luke’s voice corrected her-- _in the Ibrihimic traditions_ ). But the second line? Luke had no children. She had wondered who the kid in the dedication was, and why her mentor needed to apologize.

“It is cryptic, isn’t it? I wish I could ask him why he used an emoji.”

Ben’s brow furrowed. “That’s your takeaway? You don’t want to know any of the other stuff? Like why he’s apologizing?”

“Well, it’s none of my business, is it? He generally kept his own counsel. On personal stuff, anyway. Never shut up about academia. I certainly benefited from that.”

“Okay, Movie Star,” Ben said tartly, “now you want me to think you know a best-selling author?”

“Actually, I can prove it.” She pulled out her boarding pass. _Dr. Rey Jackson_ was neatly typed above her departure time. She pulled Temples from Ben’s lap and flipped to the Acknowledgements. She pointed to her name. “I’m also cited and photographed… sorta.” She popped a piece of chewing gum into her mouth. “Anyway, what’s got you interested in the dedication?”

“It’s a piss-poor way to apologize.”

“He’s dead. He can’t exactly say it to the kid’s face.”

Ben made a noise that was half sigh and half grunt. “He had years to apologize. He couldn’t make it better, but he could still have said it to my face, or even over the fucking phone. Instead, he ran away to play adventurer.”

Realization dawned on her. “You’re Ben! Ben Solo, the nephew from the dedication to A Brief History of Metaphysics in Religion!” Just as suddenly, and to herself, _Called it! Rich business school boy_. “Luke talked about you and your parents sometimes.”

He arched a heavy eyebrow. Now that Rey thought about it, he might be interesting beneath the douchebaggery. If that were the case, it was completely acceptable to think of his face as a map whose features she wanted to trace and take to memory. “I really doubt it.” His snark shattered the illusion.

“What about the rest of the book, then?” she tried. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I haven’t read it yet,” he said softly. He was blushing. “If the pattern with his other books holds, I’ll hate it while I’m reading, but come away loving it. I hated the man, but he was a genius.”

“Can I ask--”

“No,” Ben replied, a quiet roar.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”

“You want to know why I hate my uncle.”

“I think I already told you that it’s not my business,” Rey said. Under her breath she muttered, “Douche.”

They locked eyes.

“What did you call me?” he asked, voice low.

“I believe you heard me.” She switched off the small light above her head. “Goodnight. Afternoon. Whatever.”

In a veritable floating fortress of extra pillows and blankets, she drifted off. She dreamed of the animals at Göbekli Tepe. Gazelles ran in herds, nimble on the shifting sands. Foxes, russet and yipping, played together. Snakes, thin and familiar, left trails in the dust.

And then it all changed.

The gazelles stopped in their tracks and moved as one. They stared at her, and she watched with horror as they changed. Their legs grew first; the joints swelled, their hooves burst into strange shapes, and their limbs were thick, covered in heavier fur. Their heads changed next. The long, elegant skulls screwed up into triangles far too large for their bodies, and their ears elongated and changed direction. At last the rest of the animals caught up, their backs and bones and necks becoming strong enough to hold everything together. Their long tails ticked like metronomes. One not-gazelle made a sound like a horse’s whinny.

The foxes had been standing at attention, watching. They were no stoic victims. They barked and mewled and ran in circles as they changed. They grew, not in unison, but one at a time, and cried for their kin. Their fur turned blue and white, hardened, sharpened into points. They were turned to crystal, beautiful save for their piteous wailing. Their footsteps reminded her of Christmas music, like a silver bell frosted over with just a little ice.

The snakes began their metamorphosis with their tongues. The hissing stopped and they began to speak so that she could understand them. _We are real_ . One snake emerged as the leader of the group. Its eyes changed from a glowing yellow to a cloudy blue as its body grew, grew, and kept growing. _You are dreaming. We are real_ . The other snakes were morphing now, growing not slowly or evenly but by gaining a lump and swelling to fit the lump. Snake skin lay strewn everywhere. The largest snake was nearly four meters long now. Still the not-gazelles kept time with their tails. Still the foxes cried. _We are real. Open it and wake up_. The snake winked at her.

“Open it!” Rey shouted upon waking. Other passengers shot her dirty looks. “Bad dream,” she said lamely.

Crystal foxes, gazelles warping into giant fairy-tale creatures, and talking snakes. It was certainly the strangest nightmare she’d ever had. She blamed the champagne; she usually only drank it when it was a freebie for That Girl From The Movies.

Though her loud awakening had irritated several others in the cabin, Ben was sound asleep. He was snoring just a little, and a few mumbled words came out every so often. His book was still on his lap, the dedication page on display. The winky emoji stared at Rey like an enemy.

The snake had winked.

_You are dreaming. We are real._

_Maybe it’s very much alive, but we can only see it in our dreams._

_Don’t open it yet. You’ll know when._

_Open it and wake up._

Rey pulled her carry-on from beneath the seat. She took from it an envelope that went everywhere with her. Once pristine, it was beginning to show the wear and tear of the years. She tremulously pulled the piece of paper closest to the front from the envelope. It looked like a letter. It _was_ a letter. It was the creepiest letter she had ever read, written in Luke’s hand, but somehow not.

_Dear Rey,_

_I hope your flight is going well. Or is about to go well. Have a nice trip. You’re not going to get there yet. Dominican Republic? Disney World? That area. I’m not going about this right. Prophecy isn’t precise. The future is always in motion._

_We’re in Turkey right now. You’re looking at carvings of animals you’ve never seen and there’s sand in my beard. I’m going to die in a few days, kind of. Not for you, and not for Ben. I’m guessing he was an ass to you. You’ll see me again soon after you read this letter, but I won’t be me. You’ll meet Luke Skywalker, but not me._

_You were never one for religion, so I’ll try to use science. You know string theory? That’s bullshit. So is the butterfly effect. Multiverse? Real. I was surprised, too. Then I started working on_ _Temples_ _. It was really an excuse to go to sacred sites and see if I could find scientific connections._

_Basically these sacred places are nexus points for some kind of force. Even pop culture ones, like the Dragon’s Triangle, have this weird energy that a small group of scholars is studying. I gave them your name and told them to wait a couple months after your return to contact you. Work with them, or don’t. Your choice._

_Near as we can tell, you’re headed for a “possible world” with “possible propositions”. That’s science for “alternate universe where stuff maybe could have happened here”. We think this force is omnipresent, across all universes, but people just don’t know how to fully access it in our universe. Sometimes you’ll get a strong feeling, like a calling or an urge to do something or go somewhere. That’s this force. Go with it. To answer your question, the force “told” me to do the ;) thing. I hope it helped somebody because it crushed my soul to do it._

_The next page in the envelope is for me (the Luke you’ll meet soon). You’re welcome to read it. I’d be interested to know what you think, but again, I’m dead._

_I’m trying to get everything out. There’s a man in a mask. White armor. Red and blue light in a snowy forest. A tall man with golden robes. At the center of it all, my sister. So many words, familiar and unfamiliar. Princess, General, ‘Alderaan’... Looks like she’s remarkable no matter what universe you’re in._

_I said the Dragon’s Triangle is a nexus for the force. So is the Bermuda Triangle, which you will be flying into soon. I wonder if we ought to make it capital-F Force or if that’s borderline religious. I guess it is spiritual. Whatever. I’m dead and it’s up to you and the team._

_Good luck, and may the Force be with you. That sounds pretty neat._

A laugh caught in her chest and mingled with a sob. It was ridiculous. Nonsense. Other universes and secret religious societies and magic forces. But Luke had been dead for years. How could he have known she would open the envelope for the first time on a plane? He’d even gotten the general location of her destination right. He mentioned Ben being with her. How could he know that? She pulled the second sheet of paper from the envelope, the one meant for the “other” Luke. It was covered in blocky scribbles. She shoved both papers into the envelope with a frustrated grunt.

That was when the fasten seat belt light came on. The droning drawl of the captain informed them that there was turbulence ahead. Ben slept through the announcement. He slept through two different members of the cabin crew trying to wake him so he could fasten his safety belt. In the end, Rey clicked it in place for him. He slept through the turbulence. He slept through passengers gasping and shrieking when the lights went out.

He slept through the _hiss_ that signaled the arrival of the oxygen masks.

On autopilot, Rey secured her own mask and then put Ben’s on his slumbering face. She shook him and slapped him, shouting, “Wake up, douchebag!” Her voice was muffled by the sound of luggage rolling around in the overhead bin, the overhead bins bursting open, and personal items rolling around the cabin. She clutched her packet of letters close, then shoved it into her shirt. She vomited on her shoes, and Ben’s, and her wobbly little carry-on.

In her last conscious moments, she turned her phone off airplane mode and sent a single sentence into her friends’ group chat. 

_I love you all_.

* * *

Before anything else, Rey registered that she was hot-- scorchingly, mind-alteringly hot. Then she noticed that she was upside-down. Everyone was upside down, still strapped into their seats with little yellow masks over their mouths. Their limbs and heads dangled, chandeliers of flesh. They were dead, she realized. An entire trans-Atlantic flight was dead. She breathed heavily, panicking. 

She was alone.

She was also a survivor. She calculated in her swimming head how far she would fall if she simply released her belt. It was dark, and she didn’t know what was below; she might land on twisted metal. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She turned on the flashlight and dropped it. Four meters onto what had been her fortress of pillows and blankets. The second part was lucky, at least. She unfastened her safety belt but kept hold of the pieces. Her shoulders screamed as they suddenly took all of her weight; one made a popping sound that she would worry about later. Her arms strained to hold her and the belt quickly started to give. She released.

Rey had sprained her ankle when she was eight. She’d been salvaging cars for copper and climbed too high. The doctor had also given her tetanus shot, which had burned. She had one crutch, and she’d made it herself. She was still expected to find valuable scrap. Every step was agony.

That pain paled in comparison to whatever she had just done to her knee. Bending it hurt, straightening it hurt, and putting any weight on it was excruciating. And she had to find her way out of an upside-down plane. Alone.

“Is-- is anyone else alive? Hello?” she called. She picked up her phone. Hopefully she could see the date and time, location, and call for help. Maybe help was already on the way. “Anyone? Hello?” Something crunched against her torso; the envelope. She could have dashed the damn thing into the sea for its uselessness, but it was all she had left. She punched buttons on her phone madly, but she had no service. There was no way to contact anyone, no way to know where she was. She collapsed against the wall, defeated.

“Giving up already?” a muffled voice asked from above. Ben-- Ben was alive! He struggled to remove his oxygen mask. “I am apparently a very heavy sleeper.”

Rey snorted. “I tried to wake you up.” She limped towards him and made a landing pad of blankets and pillows thicker than her own had been. He dropped down and landed with an _oof_ , but was unharmed. He stripped off his sweaty polo shirt, leaving a form-fitting white tee behind. Rey couldn’t help it; she stared.

“It’s hot,” he said innocently. 

“Call me crazy, but I think the A/C is busted. Let’s look for a way out.”

“Out to where?” Ben asked. “We’re in the middle of the ocean.”

“No we aren’t,” she said, and suddenly Rey recognized this heat. It was a dry heat, the heat of the sun bouncing off miles and miles of bone-dry sand. “We’re in the desert.”

“Fuck,” Ben muttered.

“Agreed. The first thing we’ll need to do is consolidate supplies. I’d normally advise against moving to a secondary location, but predators will come for the-- the people. Anyway--”

“Who put you in charge?”

“I did,” Rey said sweetly. “As I was saying--”

The harsh sound of grating machinery stopped her. She limped towards the noise. Orange sparks were flying around one of the emergency exits. Someone was cutting them out. More quickly than Rey anticipated, a large hunk of metal fell and sunlight and sand streamed in. She pulled her hair away from her sweat-slick face.

“We got two alive in there, humanoids by the look of the scans. Extraction of sentients is vital, but remember to do as little damage to the tech as possible. We’ve never seen this kind of ship before. We need thorough reports and technical readouts. Go kick some ass.”

The words were weird, but the voice was familiar.

“Poe!” Rey called. “Poe, is that you? Thank God!”

“This is Commander Poe Dameron. Please state your names and affiliations.” Weird, again, but probably a military procedural thing.

“Er, Dr. Rey Jackson, British Museum, and my, er, friend?”

“Benjamin C. Organa-Solo. Her friend.”

An unusual kind of cable was lowered into the belly of the plane, along with a harness and clip. Ben motioned for Rey to go first. She’d spelunked and climbed in all manner of places for work. When Poe didn’t return her safety calls, Rey began chewing her lip. She looked at Ben, who shrugged. She was jerked upwards, pulled at a steady pace, and helped out of the aircraft by a man with a beard. She thanked him quietly and limped to Poe, who stood with his back to her.

“It’s alright, Poe. I’m alright. I mean, I need an X-ray or two and maybe a spa day. Therapy might be a good idea, if I’m brutally honest. But you don’t need to worry. I’m alive.” She put a hand on his shoulder. He stepped away.

“Snap,” Poe called. The bearded man looked at him. “Get Dr. Jackson scanned by Emdee. She’ll need bacta at the very least. Then have Pava talk with her.” 

“Jess? What’s she doing here?” Rey was admittedly no expert on American Air Force policies, but she didn’t think that Jess would be allowed on a rescue mission just because she and Poe were engaged. Maybe the heat was getting to her. Maybe he hadn’t said ‘Pava’; she could have misheard him. The crinkle of paper against her torso reminded her again of Luke’s ridiculous notion. Maybe this was a universe where she didn’t know Poe. It could have been funny if it weren't so sad. 

She let Snap lead her to a medical tent. She expected a cot and some bandages, a saline drip, maybe an old CRT monitor. She got so much more. A robot was waiting to look at her, gray metal arms with six fingers on each hand, stout body with whirring mechanisms behind a surgical gown, yellow eyes scanning. “How does it work?” she asked.

Snap laughed. “I know, I know. He’s old. But he still works just fine. The Emdee-oh will never go out of style.” 

“No, I mean literally how does it work? It’s fascinating. I’ve never seen a real robot before. Because toys don’t count, do they? This is a proper robot. Do the other countries know you’ve got these? Do-- what’s it doing?”

“He,” Snap said, emphasizing the pronoun, “just sent your medical information to me.”

“Already? He didn’t even take blood.”

MD-0 beeped and whistled. Snap translated, “He says he took a small sample while you were talking too much.”

“So what’s the prognosis?”

It was like hearing a grown man argue with a sound effects machine. Snap would say something, MD-0 would make a funny noise, and so on. “I’m still telling Poe!” Snap finished, red-faced. 

“Telling Poe what?” Rey asked. “If it’s about me, I have a right to know. You’re US soldiers. You’d be violating the law if you told anyone but me my health information, even if he is my friend.”

“Doctor, we’re not a U-S anything. We’re Black Squadron. I don’t know where you think you are, but this isn’t it.”

When he left the tent she started to storm out after him, but her knee gave out. A queer feeling washed over her, almost like she could see the shape of things happening outside, or things that would happen. Poe hugging Ben. A dark whisper about a man in a mask. Snap and Poe frowning. Ben falling, bloody. Men in white armor. 

Luke was right. 

“God damn it,” she said just before she fainted.

* * *

“You magnificent girl,” she said upon waking. “I’m so glad to see you.” Jess Pava was trying to talk to MD-0, who wanted nothing to do with her.

“I swear I won’t break you!” Jessika lamented. “Not on purpose. Oh, hi. You’re awake. So, long story short, Emdee patched you up-- bacta on your knee, popped that shoulder back in-- but something in your blood work was wonky so you’re coming back to base. Also, new clothes if you want ‘em.”

“Wonky how?”

Jess shrugged. It was her ‘I truly have no idea’ shrug, not her ‘withholding information’ shrug. “So what’s your story?”

“How do you mean?”

“Where are you from?”

Oh. So no one knew her. Grand. Her only ally was Ben Solo until she could find Luke. She started to breathe rapidly, but she had a strange sense that honesty would lead to less frenzy. “London,” she managed. Jess shook her head. “England.” Jess shook her head again. “Earth?” she tried.

“Okay, how about we talk shop. What can you tell me about your ship?”

“My ship? Oh, you mean the plane! Not much, really. I was a passenger, not crew. I think it was a 777. Most of the trans-Atlantic flights are. There’s probably a flight manual in the cockpit, if that survived. And the black boxes will have tons of data.”

Jess typed hurriedly into something that looked like an iPad, but with holograms. “Who’s the guy? Boyfriend?”

“Ben? No. He’s a guy I met right before the flight. Still, the wrapper is prime.”

“Oh yeah,” Jess agreed, laughing. “Masturbation material. You don’t have to date a person to climb them like a tree.”

It hurt to hear so badly because her Jess had said the exact same words once. Rey snickered like it was the first time she’d heard them. “Very true. The scar kind of does it for me.”

Jess pursed her lips. 

“Is he okay?” Rey asked. “He didn’t seem injured.”

“Yeah, he’s fine. Talking to Dameron.”

Jessika Pava was an open book who wore her heart on her sleeve. Rey had known her for a decade and was familiar with her tells. Jess’s cocked out hip and arms crossed below her breasts told Rey that she was being honest. The line between her eyebrows and the press of her mouth said the opposite. At least that’s what _her_ Jess’s body language meant. _This_ Jess, who talked to robots and flew in spaceships and wore orange jumpsuits, might have completely different nonverbal cues. Like standing at attention and shoving Rey to the ground while saying, “Copy!” into her sleeve.

“Hostiles incoming. Stay down, Doctor. We’ll take care of it.”

Perhaps she should have stayed inside the medical tent with the robot. As soon as Jess was out of sight, her vision was clouded by two visions: _Ben falling, bloody. White armor_. She’d never fired a gun. The most intense fight of her life had ended with her knocking a lad out with a wooden rod. She wasn’t suited for combat. But if she didn’t leave, if she didn’t yell-- something-- Ben would be shot.

She leapt to her feet and covered her ears. Engines roared to life and whizzed by, blowing sand into the tent. The first shot could have hit right next to her or miles away, a quaking, quiet, contained explosion. The weapons didn’t fire like guns. They didn’t bang, they screamed.Going out in a fire fight was beyod stupid, but she had to. There was no choice, it was--

_The Force._

She took a steadying breath. She was going to go out there and save Ben Solo. She was going to live. How else could she study the Force with Luke’s colleagues? Luke had foreseen her survival in the Force. Now she had to guarantee Ben’s survival.

Poe and Ben were firing weapons from behind a spaceship ( _X-Wing_ , something whispered). Suits of white armor advanced, all individuality erased, firing laser blasters. They hadn’t noticed her yet, and that was wrong. She started limping towards Ben, waving her arms over her head. He spared her a half-second’s notice, but it didn’t feel like enough. She had to shout something, something that would get his attention.

There are a lot of distracting things a person could yell in such a scenario. “Look, tits!” works every time. A scientific fact or a crackpot hoax will also suffice. Rey did not exclaim that the force of gravity in a vacuum is 9.8 meters per second squared. She didn’t yell, “Bigfoot!” No, Dr. Rey Jackson needed to yell something incredibly interesting and distracting. So she did.

“Something incredibly interesting and distracting!” she shouted.

Poe was unfazed, but he hadn’t been her target anyway. Ben looked at her from afar, brow furrowed and shoulders shrugged. She was still waving her arms, still running as best she could with a healing knee. Ben took one step away from the X-Wing. A laser blasted the spot where his head had just been, leaving a charred black mark. His face grew long and he sprinted to Rey. Taking her by the wrist, he pulled her back behind the medical tent. 

“Why would you do that?” he asked, trying to make his voice louder than the screeching lasers and growling engines. He put one hand on either side of her face as they kneeled in the sand. She mimicked the gesture and gasped. His scar was gone. But that wasn’t important at present.

“You would have died otherwise!”

His eyes widened and darkened. “How do you know?”

“I just do! I don’t know how, but I saw it happening and I had to stop it.”

“But you hate me,” Ben said, almost too low to hear over the noise of battle. Rey shook her head; one corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Do you know who’s going to win this fight?”

She closed her eyes and tried to focus. _Are you there, Force? It’s me, Rey. Can you tell me who’s going to win? Or how to make sure my friends don’t die?_ Silence, menacing and still, sat in her mind. “No idea,” she said. “And your scar is healed.”

He touched his face, then pulled her close. They hunkered down, holding each other behind the med tent for what seemed like hours. Eventually, in the quiet aftermath, a tall figure in a green jumpsuit and helmet approached them. As it approached, the figure only became more and more impossibly tall. Ben and Rey stood and, somehow, found their fingers linked. 

Rey was used to alien-- that is to say, foreign-- customs. When on digs, it was paramount to be respectful of local traditions and to always comply with law enforcement. But when met with a two-meter tall green man with red eyes and no nose, Rey was at a loss. She squeezed Ben’s hand tightly. 

“He’s going to die soon,” Ben whispered. He shivered despite the desert heat. “I don’t know how I know that.”

“Greetings,” the alien said. Whispers flew in and around Rey’s consciousness. _Duros. Hero. L’ulo L’ampar. Ugly. Luminous_. “Here is one face I know and another I do not. Young Solo, who is your friend?”

“I’m Rey,” she said before Ben could answer. “Dr. Rey Jackson, British Museum.”

“Well met, Dr. Rey Jackson. I am L’ulo. We have just ‘liberated’ a transport shuttle. Pava has volunteered to take you to base.”

_Go. Find Luke. Find home._

Ben stiffened beside her.

“That’s great,” Rey managed. “Awesome. Thanks. Can you just point us…?” The Duros gestured to the other side of the med tent. “Er, thanks. Again. I sound a bit like a broken holo, don’t I?” She let Ben lead her away.

“Smooth,” he said.

“Sorry,” Rey snapped, “I’m having difficulty coming to terms with a literal alien. I’ve had too many paradigm shifts recently.”

They walked, hands linked, until the transport was in sight. “What’s a holo?” Ben asked.

“Huh?”

“A holo. You told L’ulo that you sounded like a broken holo.”

“Record. Broken record,” Rey corrected.

“But you said ‘holo’.”

“You must have heard wrong,” she said. “How does everyone know you?”

“Apparently I have a famous mother.” He sighed. “The more things change…”

“You seem to be taking everything in stride.”

“Why shouldn’t I? This is the afterlife, and it’s better than I thought it would be. For one thing, it exists. For another, I have a fascinating woman by my side. I’m interested to see how far the afterlife goes in that regard. Are you the actual woman who was next to me on the plane? If not, I wonder why whoever’s in charge picked someone like her. She really did seem to hate me.”

“She’s going to, if you don’t stop talking about her like she isn’t here,” Rey groused. “And we aren’t dead.”

“Then explain where we are.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“I can’t,” she said, “but Luke can.”

He stopped walking so suddenly that she, still holding his hand, pitched forward. “What?” he snapped. “Luke is dead. He can’t do anything anymore.”

 _Don’t_.

“He’s not dead-- not really. Not here. He--”

“I saw his body with my own eyes. I watched them close the casket and put it in the ground. I threw a shovelful of dirt on him myself.” Every word was a knife wound.

_Don’t tell him. Not yet._

But she had to tell him, didn’t she? Finding Luke was imperative to their getting home. She could probably just show him the first letter and that would be that.

A man in a black mask. Luke, but different, in robes like a wizard might wear, a red light blooming inside him. 

_Don’t tell him._

Rey took a shaky breath. “He was working on something,” she said, “for a few years before he died. And he passed that knowledge on to others, and to me. With that knowledge, he said, no one’s ever really gone. You may have hated him, but I didn’t. Please excuse any sentimentality on my part for the one person who ever took an active interest in my life.” It was meant to be a feint. It was meant to steer the conversation back to its origin. It backfired.

Ben smiled, a toothy, sharp, predatory thing. “Mommy and Daddy didn’t love you?” He pouted. “No wonder you pretend to be a movie star and introduce yourself the way you do.”

She stomped on his foot (she was pleased to see that his shoes still held traces of her vomit) and stormed onto the transport. Her knee felt better, she realized in passing. Rey sat in the co-pilot’s seat like she’d done it a hundred times. “Burn sky, Jess,” she said. “I want to be done with whatever Poe thinks needs doing so I can work on my own mess.”

“Care to share?” Jess asked.

Rey sighed and re-tied her hair. “Ben is frustrating the hell out of me and I just want to go home.” 

“Fuck him out of your system,” Jess said, flipping switches and pressing an unfathomable amount of buttons. Rey watched her quick movements, fascinated.

“Has that ever worked in the history of ever?” Rey asked. “Sex-- especially with people like him-- complicates things.”

“People like him?”

“Rich, powerful. It wouldn’t end well.”

“Or it could. He seems to like you. Stares at your ass a lot.” She sounded so sincere, so brutally honest and crude, that Rey could be talking to _her_ Jessika. She knew she ought to hold her tongue; anything she said was probably going to be reported to their leader. But Rey was alone. Her friends were now Ben Solo’s friends, until she could find Luke. She would take what comfort she could get.

Jess was staring at her, wide-eyed and curious. “I thought you didn’t know anything about flying ships.”

“I don’t.” Then she looked up. Her fingers, of their own accord, had been pressing brightly-colored buttons. She pulled her hands down as if burned. “I’m so sorry. Did I break it?” 

“No,” Jess said at length. “You did everything perfectly, actually.”

Rey’s vision swam. “I’m going to be sick.” She ran to the ‘fresher despite not knowing the way and puked up green-yellow bile. Her throat burned to speak, but she did it anyway. “How do I know these things?” she croaked. “Is it the Force?” She rinsed out her mouth with water.

There were no answers on the shuttle. Rey stayed out of the cockpit for the duration, in the windowless aft, unnerved. Unfortunately, that meant she was stuck with Ben. He seemed contemplative when she found him, looking at hands he had folded in his lap. 

“I owe you an apology,” he said, not looking at her. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about your parents.” She stayed silent, waiting for the rest of it. He took his time. “I also should have let you explain your theory. I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t going to apologize for the things he had said about Luke. She wondered what he had done to make his nephew hate him. “I accept your apology,” Rey replied, clipped. “Are you willing to listen now?”

“To listen, yes.” He sighed. “But please don’t bring up…”

“I won’t,” she promised. There was no voice warning for her now. The omission of Luke seemed to be key. She gave Ben the short version: scientists and spiritualists working together to understand the Force, Force nexus, and that there was a way home.

“How do you know all of this?” Ben asked, bewildered.

“I opened a letter on the plane. It told me this would happen. It mentioned the fact that it would be opened on a plane, despite my having gotten it years ago.”

“Let me see this letter,” he demanded.

“Plane crash, remember?” Not quite a lie. 

“Oh. Right. And how do we get home?”

_Don’t tell him yet._

“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “All I know is that I need to find a man who looks like a wizard.” There. It was part of the truth at least. She was getting good at borderline lies rather quickly.

“Landing in five!” Jess called from the cockpit.

Ben snorted. “I’m not sure what to tell my ‘mother’. If there’s another me walking around...” He let the thought hang in the air, heavy with possibilities.

“Don’t you wonder what they’re like, though? It might provide some great insight on nature-nurture.”

“You’re such a dork,” Ben said. “It’s really cute,” this, almost an afterthought, said while blushing.

Rey nudged him with her shoulder. “Trade the board shorts for regular trousers and I’ll be more inclined to be seen with you in public, pretty boy.”

He looked down. “These? I had to buy them at the duty-free shop. My jeans got a rip in a rather unfortunate location.”

“We’ll talk later, then.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Movie Star.”

* * *

To say that she was escorted to the leader of this group would be like saying that dogs walk their owners. She was flanked by two people, one human, one not. Green-skinned (were all aliens green?) with two tentacles hanging like hair down her front and large black eyes, she cut a striking figure. The man was nondescript, a scraggly beard and slumped shoulders. He looked more like an archaeologist than a soldier. 

“Anything, Daz?” the man asked. The green woman shook her head.

Ben was not being escorted. He walked alongside the man, hands in the pockets of his hideous board shorts. “So,” he said, “when do we get to see my mother?”

“Right away. She wants to debrief you and have mother-son time.” It was difficult to tell if he was being sarcastic; the voice whispered nothing. “Dr. Jackson has to go through processing.”

“No,” Ben said. “She comes with me.”

“I’m afraid our orders are--”

“From Dameron, right? I think Organa outranks him.”

The man sighed and walked a few paces away. He was talking into his wrist.

“Beaumont--” Daz called after him, then shook her head. She looked at Ben curiously. “You put a lot of chemicals on your hair.” He opened his mouth to deny it, but ended up blushing instead. Rey snickered. It was nice to know that his hair wasn’t naturally better than hers.

While they waited for Beaumont to return, Rey took the opportunity to look around. There were trees everywhere, familiar jungle trees. It could be Earth, but the birds looked wrong. The faintly chittering twilight insects made noises she couldn’t have imagined. She watched the sun sink behind mountains and hills. Her trained eye noticed breaks in the natural patterns, a certain uniform roundness in places and an unnatural flatness in others. There had been a civilization here once. She wondered if these people, this military, knew that they had built atop bones. They must. Militaries, in her experience, generally didn’t care.

They were waved on by Beaumont and led to a large concrete building that had seen better days. Ben knocked three times before a voice called for them to enter. 

The room was crowded. Strange creatures of all shapes, sizes, and colors were packed together around technology Rey had never seen before. Everything was sleek, the computers were holograms, and robots walked freely. It was like one of the movies she pretended to be in, but raw. There were arguments among officers. The smell of sweat mixed with machine oil permeated every corner. Everyone was busy with something, loud and flustered. It was nothing like the movies she pretended to be in.

In the middle of everything, holding court, was someone she had never met but knew immediately. Leia had the same deep-set eyes as her son, the same calm demeanor as her brother. She smiled when she caught sight of Ben. As she walked towards him, the crowd seemed to part unconsciously for her. She took Ben’s hand, then Rey’s and closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet,” she said.

Leia linked her arm with Ben’s. Rey trailed behind a few paces, letting images and feelings come to her. Tally marks. A man in a mask. A red planet. A creature she knew but didn’t.

 _Trust_.

Leia turned around and was staring at her. Rey smiled weakly. Luke had called her a general and a princess, ‘the center of it all’. She hardly felt forewarned or forearmed against this small woman, this titan in blue silk and delicately braided hair.

At length the trio came to the officers’ quarters, and finally into a surprisingly modest sitting room. Rey had expected grandeur, gold-encrusted hardware and opulent artwork. She found paintings. A cityscape in a plain frame, tall buildings like chrome stalagmites reaching up, trying to be as tall as the snow-dusted mountains that surrounded them. A small portrait, framed in silver, of a woman with Ben’s eyes and a face covered in white makeup. Most prominently displayed was a large canvas of three people. The artist had captured everything: the man’s boredom, the woman’s fire, and the child’s loneliness.

“They said you defected,” Leia said, inviting them to sit. “That after what happened at the temple, you went to Snoke. Some say you were Snoke’s before that. I know well enough what my brother says happened that last night. I want to know if my son agrees.”

Ben laughed humorlessly. “Typical. Always ready to believe the worst, just because Saint Luke said so.”

“That’s not what she said,” Rey interceded. “Right? It sounded like she was asking you what happened, which means she doesn’t believe anything yet.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” he scoffed. “It’s always been like this.”

“Just because it _was_ ,” Rey said, “doesn’t mean it _is now_ , remember?”

“People don’t change, Rey. They can’t. Fundamentally, we are who we are. Circumstances only account for so much.”

Leia exhaled sharply through her nose and gave Ben the most elegant stink-eye Rey had ever seen. “Should we talk about Vader, son? It sounds like you need a refresher.”

“I don’t need a lecture. I don’t need any of this.” As he stormed out, he turned to Rey. “See you around.”

_Follow him._

“That went about as well as I expected,” Leia said. “Something to drink, dear?”

“Er-- do you have tea?”

“I was thinking hard liquor, but Gatalentan tea sounds nice. Threepio!”

_Follow him._

“...a temperamental child, but I knew he would be from the moment I…”

_Follow him._

“...and you couldn’t get him to put on a pair of trousers…”

_Follow him._

“...like his father, and he is, but he’s got the drama gene that all men in my family have…”

_Follow him._

“...and rainbows flew out of Threepio’s asshole.”

Rey choked on her tea. “What?”

“Just making sure you’re listening. Now, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

Rey sighed. “I’m not sure. A robot--”

“Droid,” Leia corrected.

“--droid took a blood sample and something was wrong with it, so I had to come here.”

“There was nothing ‘wrong’ with your blood, Rey.” Leia pinned her with a steady gaze. “In fact, if we’re both quiet for a moment, I’m sure the reason you’re here will come to you.”

Rey didn’t need a moment. “Are you saying that Force awareness is measurable in blood samples?”

“Of course,” Leia said. “Do they not know this in London, England, Earth?”

So Jess had been sending every word she said to her commanders. “We know next to nothing about the Force at all. I need--” she took a steadying breath. “I need to find your brother. I need Luke Skywalker.”

Leia barked a laugh. “You and the rest of the galaxy. I have some of my best people looking for him right now. If it’s a Force-user you need, I can teach you a few things. I’m no Jedi, but Luke taught me the basics. Ben knows quite a lot. He was nearly grown when the temple…”

A heavy silence fell. Only the sound of a ticking chrono distracted Rey.

_Follow him._

“What did Luke say happened at the temple?”

Leia’s jaw set. “Something I won’t believe until I hear it from my son’s mouth.”

Rey just nodded. “I appreciate your offer, but I’m not looking for training. I have to speak with Luke.”

“Why?”

“My mentor said it had to be him.”

“And who is your mentor?” Leia pressed.

 _Trust_. 

“Luke Skywalker was.”

“I think you’d better explain.”

* * *

Rey didn’t see Ben in the mess for lunch. She couldn’t find him anywhere on the base during the afternoon. At dinner, there were whispers that he’d stolen a ship and jumped to the Unknown Regions. Rey knew better; Ben couldn’t fly one of these spacecrafts. 

She fell asleep outside, looking at new stars with the fascination of a child. She was warm, fed, clean, and she had found an ally in Leia. Home was far away, but not a distant hope. She patted her packet of letters affectionately. She only wished she knew where Ben was.

Later, she would regret not immediately following him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooooo... theories?  
> Like it? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Drop a comment in the box; let's chat!
> 
> My sincerest thanks to silvander for her excellent aid and advice and those voice texts.  
> [Black Squadron](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Squadron_\(Resistance\)).  
> [Beaumont](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Beaumont_Kin) and [Daz](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Daz_Crano).
> 
> Don't forget to check out the rest of the stories in this RFFA collection, [For One is Both, and Both are One in Love](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/RFFA_for_one_is_both_and_both_are_one_in_love)!
> 
> Find me on tumblr for nonsense! 
> 
> **;)**


	2. ;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presenting: TFA, if the Force Bond happened then!  
> Also featuring... canon-typical violence and canonical character death!  
> Droid-speak is done the way the comics do it (< < > >)  
> A spoiler for TROS Visual Dictionary? XD idk, I found it out on Wookieepedia and that was the source. 
> 
> CW: More corpses. To avoid this, stop reading at, "Go to the ship" and begin again at the line break.  
> CW: A near-drowning. To bypass this, simply don't read past the last line break of the chapter.

She was warm when she woke. Warm, filthy, hungry, and alone.

Rey scratched a new tally mark into the wall of her AT-AT and had an incredibly unappetizing breakfast of veg-meat. Sometimes she thought she must have eaten better than this; she had odd dreams, dreams where she was her but not her, where she was sitting with silverware eating real meat and proper vegetables. But dreams weren’t worth portions, so they were useless. She tried to push the memory of food aside and focus on the task of the day. It was, incidentally, the same as yesterday’s task, and that of years beyond counting. Survive. To survive, she had to scavenge.

It took a few tries, but eventually she got her speeder running and she headed for the ship graveyard. Lots of good pickings there, New Republic and Imperial ships alike. Her favorite haunt these past few months had been the  _ Interrogator _ . Not only did the Destroyer have its own parts, but there were other goodies still inside it. Undeployed TIEs, spare equipment for AT-ATs, weapons and armor for Stormtroopers were all hers for the taking. 

She made her way to Niima Outpost with power couplings, compressors, and a perfect hyperdrive motivator. She was certain to get a full portion for just the motivator.

The Outpost had an eerie quiet to it. People were usually loud-- trying to sell you something, or distract you long enough to pick your pocket-- but not today. Today there were whispers, even among the offworlders. Tuanul was slaughtered, the whispers alleged, every man, woman, and child. Someone asked in Shyriiwook  _ why  _ it had happened. Mutters came from every direction. The First Order. Kylo Ren. A map. Luke Skywalker.

_ You should have followed him. _

The thought struck her violently, shaking her whole body. She staggered towards Unkar Plutt, the vile old blobfish, and put her offerings before him. He pretended to consider carefully. She didn’t get a fair deal, but neither did she haggle. She was going to throw up. She needed to lie down. She needed water. She hopped on her speeder and headed home.

She had made the doll herself. It was supposed to be Dosmit Raeh, the woman whose helmet she still wore from time to time, but she didn’t know what Dosmit Raeh looked like. Her child’s imagination had settled on “vague rebel”, and they had gone adventuring in her dreams. Rey held her doll tightly and tried not to think about the voice. It was almost worse than remembering the ship flying away; she couldn’t follow a ship. But if she had someone and she had chosen not to go with them… It was unfathomable. 

A commotion in Teedo and binary drew her out of her sulking. A droid was calling for help. She grabbed her staff and left Dosmit in her hammock.

BB-8 was good company. He didn’t take up much space and he didn’t ask too many stupid questions. 

“So, this is it,” Rey said lamely. “Welcome to your home for the night.”

<<You could use the other rooms in the walker, you know.>>

“I don’t need to. I have enough space for all of my things already.”

<<What are all of your things?>>

Rey rolled her eyes. “Well, my hammock. Dosmit the doll. Dosmit the person’s helmet. My staff. Food and water supply. Tools for scavenging. Bits and pieces. My papers. My flower--”

<<What if your flower wants to get bigger?>>

“Nothing grows very big on Jakku.”

<<What are your papers?>>

Rey shot the droid a glare. BB-8 whirred sadly. “I don’t know what they are. All of them except for one are in a language I don’t recognize. The one I can read is a note-to-self written by a madman.”

<<Maybe I know the language.>>

A tiny burst of hope bloomed in her. She had always wanted to know what the letters said. Had her parents left them with her? Were they clues about how to find them? She gingerly handed one leaf of paper into BB-8’s extendable arm. He scanned it quickly.

<<I do not know this language. I think it may be a cipher.>>

The world tilted. She was still on her knees in her dark AT-AT, but all at once she wasn’t the only person there. She scrabbled back and grasped for her staff.

“Rey,” he said. “Is it really you?”

“Who are you?” she asked. Tall, pale, raven-haired and cloaked in midnight, Rey wanted him to be familiar. “How did you get here?”

“Can you-- can’t you see me? I see you, but nothing else. It’s like you’re on the ship with me.” A pregnant pause, thick and heavy. “I thought you were dead.”

“Who are you?” she repeated, baring her teeth.

He looked like she’d kicked him. “It’s me, Rey. It’s--”

The connection severed, and Rey was left alone with her new droid friend.

<<Who were you talking to?>>

“I wish I knew, Beebee.”

* * *

Rey wasn’t sure why, but she decided to take her packet of papers with her the following day. She wrapped them tightly under her clothes and close to her heart. 

She also wasn’t sure why she walloped the hell out of a guy just because a droid told her to, but things had been weird lately. She certainly wasn’t happy about his hand-holding issues. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to protect this inept boy, often from himself.

She wasn’t sure why she picked the garbage YT-1300 Corellian freighter over literally any other ship that hadn’t blown up.

It turned out alright. She got to meet Han Solo and Chewbacca, the notorious smugglers. She impressed Han Solo by bypassing Plutt’s jury-rigged compressor. She impressed Han Solo!

There was something about his affect that made her sad. The crook of his nose, the way he carried himself, the lopsided smile-- these were all familiar. She’d seen this face before; she’d seen these features somewhere else. Uneasy, she told herself that he’d probably come through Niima once or twice. Loads of pirates did. And Han had fought in the rebellion. No one walks away from war without a shadow behind their eyes. He was a weary old smuggler; that was all. 

Finn was groaning and moaning as he and BB-8 applied bacta patches to the wounds he had gotten from the radial mouths of the rathtar. Rey stayed in the cockpit. She had never been off of Jakku, and she wanted to see all she could before she went back. She would commit every star to memory. Takodana itself was the real marvel, and she knew she’d never forget it. 

She had a hundred thoughts and questions.  _ It’s got to be twice the size of Jakku! Do the people miss not having any moons, or do they not ache for them because they never knew them to begin with? No one goes thirsty here _ . Awed, she could only sigh, “I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy.” She felt Han looking at her. She turned away.

No one in the galaxy was reliable. A decade and a half of waiting, scraping, starving, and screaming had taught her that. But it all had to pay off. It couldn’t be for nothing. They were coming back for her. She felt like she belonged somewhere. If belonging meant waiting a few more years in the desert, so be it.

Han’s offer was so tempting. She could fly away with her heroes, be a pirate in her own right. She could learn to be a decent shot with a blaster. She could go on adventures with map-carrying droids to far-off worlds searching for legends. She could create her own belonging. An insidious sickness crept into her stomach and up her throat. No. She was waiting because they were surely waiting, too. Just a little longer. 

_ No! _

Rey turned slightly. A child-- a child she’d heard countless times was calling. Finn left her. Typical.

_ No! _

She started to follow the call, down, down into a deep stone hallway, dimly lit. This was an old place, a sad place, and she wanted to run.  _ Come back! _ The stones themselves were desperate. There had been anguish here.  _ No! _ She took the well-worn stairs, built on a foundation of blood.  _ No! _ There was something pulling her.  _ Come back! _ She was being pushed ever forward.

Rey’s vision went black around the edges. She fell back against the cool basement wall and stared at the man who had invaded her home.

“How do you keep finding me?” she demanded, too dizzy to think of anything else.

“Why do you keep running?” he countered. He was frowning, his lips torn to shreds and bleeding, his hair mussed.

“Who are you?”

“Where are you, Rey?” he asked. It was a plea, desperate and frantic. “Get out of the Hosnian system, if you’re there. I can’t stop them, but get out--”

“Who are you?”

He straightened, tugged his gloves more snugly. “I’ll find you, Rey. And when I do, I’ll make--”

She panted and fell to her knees. Crawling, she came to a locked door. A secluded room would have been a lovely place to hide from everyone and everything. The lock beeped and the door opened. Uneasy but not displeased, she crawled inside.

Knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, useless junk, and antiques were covered in dust. She sneezed twice. One thing, and only one thing, was shiny. An old wooden box, its hinges and latch well-polished and oiled, sat before her. It was practically begging to be opened. Like so many other things in the last standard day or two, Rey wasn’t sure why she got into the proprietor's things. Maz was an odd little woman who seemed to hold a grudge.

There were many strange things in the chest. Buttons, beaded necklaces, sections of bone, all on a bed of striped fabric that smelled musty and dusty. Strangest of all was the metal tube with its uneven surface, almost like a severed hilt. Rey reached for it with trembling fingers.

_ Your lightsaber _ , a voice whispered, making her soul vibrate. Against her will, she picked it up. 

She was thrown violently into the snow. A man in a mask, glowing red sword pulsing from his hand. Scrabbling back, the cold that bit into her fingers and seeped into her clothes turned dry. Sand stuck to every part of her that was damp. A ship loomed in the distance, large and charred. She pitched forward into the surf, freezing water tossing her up--down--left--up--  _ I can’t swim! _ Then she stood, the red saber in her own hands, staring at a body on the floor.

She vomited at Maz Kanata’s feet. 

“Get this thing away from me,” Rey rasped, throwing the pilfered lightsaber to the ground. It landed with the sound of windchimes.

“That lightsaber was Luke’s, and his father’s before him. Now it has chosen you.” Maz removed the glasses from her face, turning her bug eyes tiny. She extended a hand to Rey, who took it gladly. “I see your eyes, child,” Maz said. “You know the truth. You’ve buried it well, but the truth doesn’t die just because we will it away. Whomever you’re waiting for on Jakku can’t give you a home, but--” she wiped a tear from Rey’s face with her free hand “--someone still can.”

“Luke?” Rey asked. His lightsaber, the Tuanul massacre, a map to him hidden in a droid-- it added up. 

“I’m no Jedi, but I know the Force. It surrounds and binds us all. Close your eyes. Feel it. It’s always been there, guiding you. It will keep guiding you.”

“Yes,” Rey agreed. In quiet moments, she had felt it. In wrecks, salvaging, knowing which route was safest to take, how to avoid a misstep. In the Outpost, sensing who would swindle her, knowing when someone was about to steal her speeder. And fifteen years was such a long time. She was waiting. She had been waiting for a BB unit to find her.

“Take the saber.”

The spell was broken.

“I’m never touching that thing again.” She turned on her heel and ran. She was going to accept Han’s job offer. They would fly off and smuggle something and she would forget ever being in the Castle’s basement.

Approaching the  _ Falcon _ , she doubled over in pain. People all around her were pointing to the sky, shouting. Something beautiful but terrible was happening. Rey turned her face up. Red streaks painted her vision. At the end of each one, a light flashed behind her eyes, bright and painful. 

“It’s the Republic!” Finn yelled.

No one had time to wonder how he knew, or try to comm their loved ones in the Hosnian system. The First Order was invading Takodana. Rey ran for the forest, splitting up from BB-8.

It was a skirmish of highly-trained troops versus marauders. The former had combat training, discipline, and team maneuverability. The latter didn’t care about any of those, which gave them a certain advantage on this, the world of the Pirate Queen. Until the TIEs began firing on the Castle. Civilians were crushed, pirates took damage from the aerial assault, and Kylo Ren himself was planetside, looking for a droid.

Rey was used to running and evading on shifting desert sands. Forests were a fathier of a different color: dense, firm, and full of roots and underbrush. She tripped, scratched her knees and hands. When Kylo Ren found her, she almost forgot to turn the safety off of the blaster before she fired at him. He froze her arms to her sides.

_ You should have followed him _ .

“Rey, thank God you’re okay,” he said. His vocoder made the statement menacing. “I’ll bring you to my ship. I have to find a map before we can leave, but the droid is unique. It won’t take long.”

“You’ll never find the map to Skywalker,” she gritted out. 

Kylo Ren cocked his head and advanced. “Have you seen it?” He put a hand near her head. “You have. Let’s go.” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Rey snarled. As soon as she felt her limbs relax, she shot at him. He froze the bolt mid-air with a flick of his wrist and yanked the blaster from her hand telekinetically. 

“You really don’t remember me, do you?”

Then everything was black.

* * *

She woke in a chair, covered by a thick blanket. The room was bright but small, a living space meant for a single person. She could see the green and blue of Takodana out the viewport. There were no engine noises above, below, or beside her. Curious. The ship was clearly operational. She wondered what sort of craft this was. 

She slid out of the chair, sore and feeling like jelly, and took stock. She was the same; same clothes, same hairdo, papers still wrapped between her clothes and breasts. The room was very gray with few personal effects. A narrow bed, a closet, a desk with some fancy brushes she didn’t recognize, a book in a language she didn’t know. The small table had two chairs, as if its owner had a solitary visitor once in a while.

He exited the fresher and gathered her into his arms in one movement.

“You’re here,” he whispered into her hair. “I finally found you.” The soft cotton of his clothes was warm, the smell of him reminiscent of a time long ago, some memory she couldn’t unlock.

Rey pushed him away. “Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re my guest,” he said lamely. “We’re in my quarters. On Ilum.”

“Ilum? Unknown-Regions-countless-parsecs-from-Takodana Ilum?”

“Yes. It’s been turned into a space station. The Starkiller.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

He sat and she followed suit. “So we can go home.”

“I don’t even know you,” Rey scoffed. “Why would I go anywhere with you?”

“It’s me,” he said. “Ben. From the plane. You told me this would happen. I found a way back.”

“I think you need to explain.”

It was nonsense, of course. A single planet with limited tech sending two people into a different universe  _ accidentally _ ? And she, a well-traveled and respected academic? Forgetting her entire life? Then, upon coming to the actual galaxy, meeting people who she forgot and who forgot her? It didn’t make sense.

“It’s because of the paradoxes,” Ben said. “The forgetting, I mean. There are only supposed to be one of us in each universe. When the second arrived, it created a paradox. Rey of Jakku already existed, so Rey Jackson couldn’t also exist. The easiest way to explain it is to say that you merged with your other self. I think Jakku-Rey is dominant because Rey Jackson was focused on finding someone in this universe. Your thoughts were already heavily leaning away from home.”

“And you? Why can you remember everything?”

“Ben Solo was already torn apart when we got here,” he said softly. “He wasn’t complete. He’d made himself two people. My being here doesn’t change that. It reinforces it. So I have his memories and my memories. It’s weird having two different sixth birthday parties.”

“Do you have any proof?” Rey challenged.

Ben turned bright red. “Two things.” He went to his closet and rooted around in the back before bringing forth a spectacularly ugly pair of shorts. Rey pulled a face. He then handed her the book she had seen earlier. She flipped through the pages of photographs. It was very pretty, but otherwise useless. “I crawled through a plane of corpses for this stupid book, you know. As soon as I got settled here, I went back to that Force-forsaken desert planet and got in that thing. Animals had gotten in. The bodies weren’t in good condition.” All of this was spoken lightly, as if he were discussing the weather. “I found your suitcase, too. It was down to one wheel. I looked for the letters you mentioned, but they weren’t in there. I was so angry with you for lying to me, because either there had been no letters or you had saved them. And since you were right about so many things, I knew you had kept them. I think I understand why you lied. I’m not angry anymore.” He almost smiled. A muscle next to his full lips twitched.

“I know you,” Rey said slowly, a strange recognition dawning. “I remember your nose.”

“My nose?” he asked. He sat again and studied her. She scanned his face like a droid would, projecting her frustration in her expression and the Force. “My nose,” he said, “reminds you of Han Solo’s.”

“That’s it,” Rey agreed. “So you’re related to him how, exactly?”

“You think Han Solo is the father you never had. He would have been a disappointment.” His face grew ever darker, ever more sour.

“You don’t know that,” Rey snapped. “He offered me a job.”

“Running spice? Smuggling for the Hutts? Come on, Movie Star. Grow up.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “Take me home.”

“I need the map first.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Neither am I!” Ben stood, kicked his chair. He put his face in his hands and sighed. “I can’t get us home without the map to Skywalker.”

She sniffed. “I meant Jakku.”

He flopped onto his bed like a petulant child and stared at the ceiling. “I still need the map. After I have it, I’ll take you anywhere you like. I’m so tired of fighting, Rey. I just want to go home.”

_ It’s his last hope _ , she realized,  _ but something isn’t right _ .

“Why do you need Skywalker?” she asked. He limply motioned for her to sit by him. She crossed the room and perched carefully on his narrow bed. Ben took one of her hands and kissed it. She didn’t react, so he did it again. He kept her fingers locked with his.

“You told me he wasn’t dead. I didn’t believe-- had no reason to believe-- and got angry. You amended your story on how we could get home, careful not to use his name. But you still meant to find him. I left you. I stole a ship. I’d seen you just pushing buttons and going with things as if you’d done it a million times, so I closed my eyes and tried it. The Supreme Leader saw me and knew, just with one look, what had happened. He’s as powerful as Skywalker ever was, so I asked him if he knew how to get us home. He said yes.” He smiled just a little. “It’s simple. Get to Skywalker, like you theorized. The rest is a little technical.” She poked him with her free hand; he was being evasive. “We came here via great violence at a Force nexus. Only violence at another Force nexus has a chance at sending us back.”

“And Skywalker?” she prompted.

“His blood is the means by which we ensure our return.” His fingers were like a vise when she tried to draw away. “Don’t you see? It’s the only way.”

“Or maybe Snoke is just trying to get a seasoned war hero out of the way before he starts a military campaign! If you think killing him is your last hope--”

“It is!”

“--then you need to really examine every other option. Not just examine, exhaust. Murder isn’t the answer.”

He rose to a sitting position, still clutching her hand, crushing it. “Kill one person to get back my life? If you remembered, Rey, if you-- I’ll  _ make  _ you remember.”

Rey felt his fingers touch her temple. She felt him tearing through her mind like a steelpecker, looking for what was broken. He raked his fingers through the years of sand and hurt on Jakku. He smashed through Niima Outpost, back and back until the little girl was screaming,  _ Come back!  _

“Get out of my head!” she screamed.

She swam, afraid. There was a fire and faces and  _ not good enough not strong enough not enough not enough _ \-- A mask, burned, vocoder melted.  _ Forgive me. I feel it again, the pull to the light _ . Swimming up, up, but the fear is still so intense--

Rey and Ben locked eyes. 

“Say you’ll help me.”

She reached for the heavy book in the strange language. 

“Are you going to kill him?”

Ben didn’t answer. 

Rey hit him in the head with  Temples of the World: How the Spiritual and Geological Combine by Luke A. Skywalker, knocking him unconscious. Now she had to find a way off of Ilum. After that? The job with Han still sounded good, and it seemed that the legendary Luke Skywalker was in danger. Someone needed to warn him. She smiled as she melted into the shadows. One thing at a time.

* * *

“You will let me pass, then toss your weapon into the nearest garbage chute” became Rey’s new favorite sentence. 

She had been able to feel the Force before, sometimes even understand its will. This was new and fantastic. A real Jedi mind trick? Her? And she was almost to the hangar.

But here were Finn and Han and Chewie, thinking she needed saving. It was sweet enough to make her heart break. No one had ever come back for her before. They came armed with knowledge and thermal detonators.

“For the oscillator,” Finn explained. “We’ve got to blow the oscillator so the shields can be lowered, and boom. No more Starkiller.”

“Sounds good,” Rey said. “Only…” She looked back the way she had come.

_ Go. He will find you _ .

Find her he did, in a roundabout and bloody way.

Rey watched as Han Solo revealed his position to Kylo Ren.

Rey watched as Kylo Ren took off his helmet, and she saw the hope on Han’s face.

Rey watched as Han stepped closer, as Kylo’s mask fell.

Rey watched as Kylo Ren extended his lightsaber, almost a truce.

Rey watched as Han took it and was skewered with crimson.

Rey watched as he fell, but not before pressing his hand to his son’s cheek, a parting kiss.

She heard blaster and bowcaster fire, heard the detonators blow. 

She heard Kylo Ren (Ben?) grunting as he punched his wounds.

She heard herself screaming, Finn screaming, Chewbacca roaring.

She heard nothing, for a time.

Unconsciousness was an old friend. It was a way to escape hunger and anxiety. They would still be there waiting for her when she woke, but sleep usually afforded Rey a measure of peace. This sleep was neither peaceful nor an escape. She saw Han suffocated in red over and over, reaching for his lost boy but falling every time. 

Finn woke her. The sound of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber searing his flesh and tearing screams from his lungs brought her back to consciousness just in time to see Finn fall. 

_ Your lightsaber. Get your lightsaber. _

So she did. It flew into her hand, and she knew it belonged there. She thumbed the activator. The blue light sprung forth like a font of sapphires, glowing brightly in the night created by the Starkiller.

“It’s war between us, then?” Ben asked.

“You killed him! Aren’t you even sorry that you killed him?”

A pause. “No.”

Rey lunged, an overhead thrust that was elegantly parried by Ben’s own blade. That was how it went; a series of tactical retreats on his part through Ilum’s snowy forests while she snarled animalistic noises and attacked messily. He was toying with her. Furious, she broke her pattern and simply stabbed, catching him in the shoulder. His lightsaber fell from his hand. While he was off-balance, she slid her blade up the right side of his face, narrowly avoiding his eye. The planet collapsed and shook beneath them.

He looked at her with naked fear, or perhaps it was awe. Did he think she meant to kill him?  _ Did  _ she mean to kill him? Trembling, she took a step back.

“Take care of that. It’ll scar.”

* * *

General Organa hugged her.

Not Chewbacca, a hero, her old friend. Leia Organa passed her comrade-in-arms in favor of Rey, a nobody from nowhere. Rey tried not to think about why. She was alone on this crowded base, and the aging princess was making time to wipe her tears. Comforted by royalty! How very remarkable.

“Did you hurt him terribly? My son, I mean.”

“I-- No, I don’t think so,” Rey lied. There had been so much blood on his face, and the planet had crumbled beneath him. He was probably dead. Her stomach roiled.

Leia’s smile was thin. “He’ll be fine. You still want to see Luke, I suppose? Beebee-ate brought us the last piece of the map. You could find him. Find your way home. And if you can convince him to come see his sister who misses him? Everyone wins.”

Rey stared into Leia’s dark eyes. “What do you mean, do I  _ still  _ want to see Luke?”

“Let’s walk and talk. We blew up their station, but the First Order knows we’re here. We have to prepare for evac.” Rey followed a step behind Leia as the latter hurried about the base on D’Qar, delegating and congratulating and sharing grief. Something about the horizon called to Rey, and she kept staring at it, stopping while transporting cargo or running into people. It didn’t seem entirely natural. Leia snapped her fingers. “Keep up, please.”

“It was a planet,” Rey said dumbly. “The whole thing was once a planet. I didn’t even hear a single ion engine. I never felt us jump, but I know we did. I know it did at least twice in the last day. How do you make an entire planet jump to lightspeed?”

Leia put her hands on Rey’s shoulders. Rey felt as though she were waking from a long and pleasant sleep. _ The Force _ , she realized.  _ Leia’s using The Force to calm me down. _

“I can’t do much of that,” Leia said, “nor will I. I told you that I could only teach you a little. I thought that Ben would… well, that’s neither here nor there. What matters is now. Now, my brother is hiding. Now, you need his wisdom and we need a hero. Now, you can save us and send yourself home.”

“I don’t remember it,” Rey whispered. “You and Ben talk like you know me more than I do. I have a home. It’s on Jakku.”

“Rey, I didn’t understand when you first arrived. Then you showed me a packet of letters, all in Luke’s hand. Do you still have them?”

A stone fell into her stomach. Luke had written all of the papers? They were all letters? To whom? The only one in Aurebesh began ‘Dear self’ and ended ‘love, me’. BB-8 hadn’t recognized the writing on the others. Above all, heavier than any question, the knowledge that her parents had nothing to do with the papers hit her the hardest. “What do they say?” she managed.

“Most of them were in a simple cipher. Threepio figured it out quick as anything. Some words don’t translate. You have things that we don’t and vice-versa. Do you really not remember anything at all?”

Rey shook her head. “I only know what Ben, I mean Kylo, told me, and what little the Force shows.”

“Keep calling him Ben,” Leia all but commanded. “The part of him that’s yours knows no other name. The part of him that’s mine needs to be reminded that we love him.”

“But he killed--”

Leia held up a finger. “Han knew. He knew what he was doing.” She gave the galaxy’s most dignified sniffle. “We really do need to hurry. Artoo has a copy of the cipher; he and Chewie are going with you to get Luke.”

“Ben wants Luke dead.”

“Then you had better save them.”

* * *

She piloted the  _ Millennium Falcon _ to Ahch-to, the stalwart Chewbacca in the co-pilot’s seat. R2-D2 was proving to be a sassy companion. He slung insults casually and every other beep was a swear. She found herself missing the precocious little BB-8.

<<You should try meditating.>>

Rey stretched and walked to the ‘fresher. The shameless droid followed. 

<<Master Luke would meditate. Then he’d hear voices. That’s how he blew up the Death Star. Old Ben’s ghost told him to turn off his guidance, so he did, and damn if he didn’t blow that fucker up with his eyes closed.>>

“I’m confident that Rubicon’s navicomp will get us there just fine,” Rey said, stepping into the sonic shower. It felt so good to have the dirt and grease and sin off of her skin and out of her hair. She ran the shower a second time just because she could.

<<It’s not about the navicomp. It’s about the Force. If you think you can just walk up to Master Luke and say, “Let’s go, dickhead!”, you’re wrong. You need to meditate. Figure this shit out in advance.>>

Rey pulled on clean clothes. The packet of letters stayed outside her wardrobe but within reach. “I suppose you have a plan?”

<<Guilt trip. Galaxy’s biggest guilt trip.>>

“Fair enough.” She retreated, taking her letters with her.

* * *

Luke Skywalker wasn’t old. The graying beard and surly attitude might trick some people, but Rey wasn’t fooled. This was a man who speared fish, milked thala-sirens, climbed rocky hills and vaulted chasms in search of food. No, he wasn’t old. He wasn’t even diminishing.

Luke Skywalker was defeated.

When he threw his lightsaber away like trash, Rey knew. Someone had knocked this man down so hard and so far that he couldn’t get up. Not without help. And he didn’t want help; not from her, anyway. Even Leia’s name didn’t move him. The entire Hosnian system was gone, and Luke stayed down. So she asked Chewbacca to rip the door off of his little hermit hut.

It was a lovely sight. Until--

“Where’s Han?”

The ache was unexpected. The memory of a red shroud, a caress, and a fall into the void hit her like heatstroke. She put her hand to her sternum, where she thought the blade had gone in, and gasped. When she looked up, Luke was gone. He was heading towards the  _ Falcon  _ with Chewie.

Her skin prickled. She wasn’t alone. She slowly turned on her heel, one hand ready to grab her blaster. Beneath the clear blue skies of Ahch-to, Ben was having his face stitched together. Rey watched with terrified curiosity. His eyes were closed; he hadn’t seen her yet. When he did, Rey wondered if he would attack. She was, after all, the reason he needed aid. He would be marked forever by her. Claimed, a more primal part of her whispered. She bit her lip. She had always liked scars.

His eyes blinked open lazily. He looked her up and down, rested his gaze on her blaster. “Are we enemies?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I won’t let you kill anyone else. I hate you for what you did to Han. Why did you have to do it?” 

A muscle next to his mouth twitched. “Do what?”

“How could you have hated your own father enough to kill him?”

“Well,” Ben said, reclining and crossing his arms behind his head, “there are a few problems with that question. First, I have two sets of memories, if you’ll recall.  _ That  _ Han Solo is not  _ my  _ Han Solo. This detail certainly made it easier, but not by much. Kylo Ren didn’t hate his father, either. But both of us needed to kill him.”

“Why?” Rey snarled. “He loved you!”

“I don’t doubt it,” Ben said. “He wouldn’t have come otherwise. But we had to kill him. Kylo Ren needed to gain Dark mastery. It didn’t work. He’s backsliding, if anything, and has a cocktail of messy feelings for the scavenger from Jakku. I needed the power. Now I just need to kill Skywalker and Snoke says I’ll be strong enough to get us home.”

Rey’s eyes narrowed. “Does Kylo Ren have a good reason to hate his uncle?”

“Oh, Movie Star, I know you thought I was being melodramatic when I talked about how much I hated him, but that’s  _ nothing  _ compared to this. Do you remember my mother, or, I guess Kylo’s mother, saying Luke told her something had happened at the temple but she wanted to hear my side?”

The connection ended. Rey sighed. 

* * *

She was standing in a tree. Something about it was strange. The tree had been hollowed out, made into a building, but it was still alive. It was still growing. It whispered to her, or maybe it just amplified the whispers she’d been hearing all along. She ran her fingers over the ancient wood, made sure not to step on the black-and-white mosaic decorating the ground. She could learn things here. She was meant to learn things here, in this tree and on this planet.

“Who are you?”

“Nobody.”

“Everybody’s somebody,” Luke replied.

“Rey.”

“Where are you from?”

She snorted. “That’s a point of contention. I’m either from Jakku or another galaxy.”

“Which one do you think it is?”

“I remember Jakku, but everyone tells me I’m remembering somebody else’s life. They remember me as someone else.”

“Why are you here?”

“Leia sent me. She wants your help. She says I wanted your help getting to my ‘real’ home. She wants me to save you.”

Luke stilled. “Save me from what?”

“Ben wants to kill you. Snoke told him it’s the only way to get home.”

“That’s not why he wants to kill me,” Luke said gruffly. He shuffled out of the tree, a mass of messy hair and wrinkled robes.

“It’s because of what happened at the temple,” Rey said, following. “He insinuated that much. He has two sets of memories. He hates you for whatever you did wherever he’s from and for what you did to Kylo at the temple.” Luke increased his pace and remained silent. “I don’t think that these murders will help Ben get home. I think Snoke is using him to get rid of powerful enemies. With the greatest heroes of the Rebellion gone, who will people rally behind?”

“New heroes,” Luke snapped. “Go back to Leia. Tell her I’m not coming. Go back to Jakku or Earth. There’s nothing here for you.”

Earth? 

Rey grabbed the old Jedi by the front of his robes. “Where did you hear that word? I’ve only seen it in one place, and that was-- You stole my papers!”

“Artoo told me about them!” Luke deflected. “He said that one was specifically for me and showed me where you hid them.”

“And? Does it make sense to you?”

“Most of it. I didn’t know all of the phrases.”

“Read it. Aloud. I want to know what it’s supposed to sound like.”

Luke shrugged out of Rey’s grasp and pulled her entire envelope of letters from inside his voluminous sleeves. He cleared his throat.

“Dear Self,

It’s me, you. Luke. I really hope I got this alphabet right. My protégé should be with you now, or soon, or she just left. You need to help her. She’s with you (me? This whole thing is confusing) because of a plane crash in an area full of that force (we don’t know what to call it yet). I think. It hasn’t happened yet. I know it links things. Maybe everything. Hopefully you know more. My hypothesis is that a similar event could send her home, but I don’t know where or when the you version of me lives, so I have no idea what to suggest. The me version of us is on a little planet called Earth orbiting a lukewarm sun in the Milky Way galaxy. Maybe you’re also on Earth but at a different time and you think my inclusion of those details is superfluous, but I’m new to this. Our nephew might be with her. Apologize on my behalf, if you would. Or don’t. I don’t know what kinds of paradoxes are happening. My theory is that she/they will merge with already existing versions of themselves, which means it’s of great import that they get home ASAP.

In case you doubt you’re me, the energy/force is ‘telling’ me to share a few things. 1) He didn’t have eyebrows under the mask. 2) The left one has a freckle. 3) You can be with her before you die, from a certain point of view.

Help yourself. Help her. Help our nephew.

Love,

Me.”

Rey had read it dozens of times. Hearing it spoken in the voice of the person who had written it from across the stars was frightening. It made the madness sound like Jedi aphorisms. The cadence, the pacing-- this was the voice meant to read these words. She knew it in her bones.

“Do you believe it?” Rey whispered.

“I do.”

Rey nodded. She balled her hands into fists. She fought tears. “Then tell me what I have to do.”

Luke shifted and ushered her to his hut. “You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “You can keep living this life with the memories you already have.”

“No. I’m a parasite. I’ve crawled into another girl’s skin and taken over her life.”

“Or,” Luke countered, “you are the host. You remember this life. Someone else tried to take your mind.”

“That’s not better!” Rey exclaimed. “That means that if I don’t do something, I’m actively keeping someone from her family and friends.”

“It sounds like you’re determined. I think Luke-- other Luke’s-- idea was a good one. Stress at a place strong in the Force.”

“Any thoughts on where to begin?”

“The beginning is usually a good spot. Go back to the crash site. Meditate.” He handed Rey her letters and patted her hand.

“Where will you be?”

“Here.”

* * *

The strange ship rose like a charred finger from the sand, beckoning. It had been hit by TIEs, Rey noted, and blaster shots. A medical field tend lay half-collapsed not far from her. She started her search there. Any pertinent personnel data would be stored in those files. She could see who rescued her and work from there.

The last data entries were from less than two weeks prior. Ben Solo and Dr. Rey Jackson, British Museum, London, England, Earth had been the only survivors of a mysterious wreck. Rescued by Black Squadron, they had been taken to D’Qar after a routine blood test had shown Dr. Jackson’s abnormally high midi-chlorian count. General Organa had personally wanted to meet her. Dr. Jackson’s behavior was erratic and dangerous, and she seemed clueless about simple things, such as droids.

Something tickled Rey’s mind. She stilled.  _ Go to the ship. _

It stank. One couldn’t compare the smell to rotting meat, nor to cooking meat. A ship full of cadavers was slowly baking during the day and rapidly cooling at night. She remembered Ben saying that animals had gotten in. She tied her fibra-rope tightly and rappelled into the belly of the beast. The corpses dangled from above, perverse mimicries of festive decorations. 

Rey walked where her intuition bade her. Strange clothes covered her path, shirts covered in buttons and trousers full of holes. She came to a point where a wall had collapsed. Beyond, the seats were different, larger and made of finer material. This was the place. This was where Other Rey had come into the galaxy. She sat on a convenient pile of pillows and blankets and closed her eyes. 

Meditating was difficult in this place. Her breathing was labored from the heat and the putrid smell. She could feel the fear of the dead, hear their screams and prayers. But Ben? Other Rey? Nothing. 

She gagged and pressed a hand to her mouth. She had to get out of here. There was nothing to learn anyway.

* * *

Luke had advised against it, had railed at her, but Rey needed to know. That darkness on Ahch-to called to her. She dove into the water.

Girls who grow up in the desert can’t swim.

She fought against the waves, kicking and spinning, gulping and exhaling, eyes burning from the salt and vision dimming as she sank. A voice, not the Force but a proper voice, spoke to her. It was tender, like a mother’s. Like  _ her  _ mother’s may have been.

_ Let me help you. _

She grasped the rocky edge of the pool, panting and spitting. Rey set off into the darkness to find her mother and father, Luke’s warning be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theoriessssss???
> 
> Multiple thanks to silvander, who gave me amazing title suggestions such as _The Young and the Force-Sensitive, Days of Our Intergalactic Lives, Mystery on the Star Destroyer Express,_ and my personal favorite, _Cross-Dimensional Amnesia_. Her help these past weeks has been invaluable.
> 
> Honor and glory to the mods of the [Reylo Fanfiction Anthology](https://reylofanfictionanthology.tumblr.com). They do the hard work so we can have fun. Make sure to check out the rest of the collection! 
> 
> [my tumblr](https://maq-moon.tumblr.com) is a silly little corner of the web.
> 
> Please leave a contribution in the little box! I love talking to everybody!  
>  **;)**


	3. ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some canon-typical violence here. Lightsabers and blasters, YEAH!  
> I guess a spoiler from the 2013 game SWTOR? At what point do we stop calling things spoilers? 
> 
> Anywho, the conclusion. I hope you enjoy!

Korriban, blood-red home of the Sith and birthplace of Darth Bane’s Rule of Two, loomed before her. 

She was piloting an old  _ Lambda _ -class T-4a shuttle, kindly ‘acquired’ for her by Chewbacca. She didn’t ask. It was practically an antique, a relic from the days of the Empire, and that suited Rey fine. An Imperial shuttle landing on Korriban would look better than the  _ Falcon _ . Even years after the Empire’s fall and the end of the Jedi-Sith War, certain precautions were wise.

Luke Skywalker was dead. His nephew didn’t actually land a blow, but there was a case to be made for Kylo Ren murdering his legendary uncle. And now he was ruling the galaxy, the new Supreme Leader. She wondered how much of which person was doing these awful things. Rey shook violently all over as she landed the shuttle. It didn’t matter. 

She pulled up a holo of a short translated letter, courtesy of R2-D2. It contained coordinates and a cryptic message:  _ Look behind you _ . She shuddered. 

Rey was on her own for now, not even a droid at her side. She had to rely on her own wits and abilities, and on the Force. The Force was strong here. It seeped out of every stone like pus from a wound. It wasn’t a gentle vibration on Korriban. No; on the Sith home world, the Force was a rock slide. 

She kept to the shadows, and when she couldn’t, used some good old-fashioned Jedi persuasion. “You never saw me.” “You’ll give me your weapons now.” The total population planetside was only a few thousand sentients, and she moved relatively freely. Every so often, she looked over her shoulder.

Hot-wiring and jump-starting an abandoned speeder bike were easy. That skill was muscle memory, for all the good it would do her. She’d be heading back home if all went to rights, and that meant no speeders or scavenging. 

The sun set slowly, and five of the seven moons cast eerie orange shadows on Korriban’s canyons and mountains. Rey checked her heading and looked behind her.

Looming ahead, magnificent in its destruction, was the Valley of the Sleeping Kings. Destroyed and rebuilt a number of times, some of the landmarks were completely unrecognizable. Statues of giant monsters were knocked from pedestals, broken but still potently frightening. Some of them she knew. Some of the creatures, she thought, had to exist only in nightmares. She dismounted her speeder and walked up to one of the toppled statues. A millennium of rain had eroded the more detailed features of the figure, but the inscription was still just visible. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to read Sith.

_ Tulak Hord _ , a chilling voice let her know. The Force was strong here, and this man did not want to be forgotten. A wave of nausea hit Rey. She walked onward, towards her true target.

The ancient Sith Academy was a pyramid, red as blood save for a durasteel covering of the very top. Moonlight glinted off of it in several directions, casting the entire Valley into a prismatic glow. Rey stared resolutely ahead as she climbed the stairs leading into the pyramid, ignoring the weathered statues of slaves on either side of her. In she went, past prison cells, through halls lined with etchings of horrified faces. She wasn’t entirely certain what she was looking for, but she’d know it when she found it. She clicked on her flashlight.

Down, down, into a room of databooks and holopads. She was tempted to read, to learn--

_ Look behind you! _

She moved on. 

She shouldn’t have been surprised to find him there. Ben Solo sat in the middle of a ritual chamber, in a large empty basin atop a set of gradually ascending gray steps, meditating. There were bones scattered around, skulls of sentients and delicate avian remains. The room smelled of rust: old, dry, dead blood.

“You didn’t bring your lightsaber,” he observed.

“Well spotted,” she tartly replied. “Plenty of blasters, though, so use that knowledge as you like.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You didn’t come to fight me?”

“Not everything’s about you, Supreme Leader.” She sneered the title and put her hands on her hips. “Are you here to fight me?”

“No.” 

“When are you going to?” She took the first few steps towards the empty pool.

“When am I going to what?”

“Fight me. Kill me.” She circled him slowly, unsure if she was hunter or hunted. “You’ve killed almost everyone else who ever cared about you.”

“I did what had to be done,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yet we’re still here. Look at me, damn it!” Her voice echoed through the ritual chamber, ricocheting back and making her whole body shake.

“Snoke lied,” Ben said, still refusing to return her gaze. The words were a fracture. His breath caught.

Rey got to her knees and put his chin in her hand. She turned his face to hers. “You knew that was a possibility. You killed them anyway.”

“I did.”

“And you’re still not sorry.”

He sighed. “I can’t help it. I didn’t decide to hate Skywalker. He told you what he did.”

She furrowed her brow. “No he didn’t.”

“You said you knew. On the  _ Supremacy _ , you said--”

“I was never on the  _ Supremacy _ ,” Rey said delicately.

Ben scoffed. “Right. So it was a droid that looked and acted and felt exactly like you?”

“No,” she said, “it was the other Rey. We disentangled, for lack of a better term, shortly before Luke died.”

“How?” 

“I was kind to her.”

“You’re gonna have to give me a few more details because I would love to have my own body.”

Rey smiled and let her hand drop. “She was drowning. I know how to swim. I was kicking for her and I guess I kicked my way out. I didn’t let her see me; I ran straight to Luke. We were at a Force wellspring, in great distress, and that’s how change happens. Pressure, at the right spot. Luke-- our Luke-- theorized it. This Luke agreed and gave me some possible location names before…”

“So I need to be nice to myself? What kind of after-school special do you think this is?” A prickling nervousness settled over her, and it had nothing to do with Ben’s anger. “I’m fully aware of him, and vice-versa. Your experience can’t be translated to us.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“I didn’t say it was. It’s just incredibly frustrating to have your own mind, this other guy’s mind, the Force, and an old man all talking in your head at once.”

“I would rather have had some agency than none at all!” Rey exclaimed. “I could  _ watch _ . That was it. I thought what she thought, saw what she saw. I was trapped inside of her and I couldn’t let anyone know. Excuse me for--”

“Look behind you!” Ben ignited his murderous lightsaber and stood. He shoved Rey behind him as he took a protective stance.

Rey heard them before she saw them. Deep, gravelly, growling voices, speaking, saying something, but she didn’t know what because she didn’t speak Sith. Her eyes, having adjusted to the weak beam of her solitary flashlight, made out three shapes, haloed in red. They were all giant, two quadrupeds and one biped, with a row of spikes running the length of their bodies, from their horned heads to the tips of their long tails. Rey had seen these animals before, but only once. They were carved into a pillar at Göbekli Tepe.  _ Maybe it’s very much alive, but we can only see it in our dreams _ .

“Tuk’ata,” Ben whispered.

The hounds moved at the sound of their name in the Sith tongue. Rey had a blaster in each hand and stood back-to-back with Ben. The tuk’ata on two legs reached a foreleg out to swipe lazily. Ben sliced off its taloned foot and a battle began in earnest.

The creatures talked to one another, strategized. Soon the injured one stood at the door and the hale hounds took up posts in the far corners. Rey ignored the lame one and fired on the other two simultaneously. Ben wielded saber and Force alike, eliminating the maimed tuk’ata with a twist of his wrist and a shove. The blaster bolts didn’t seem to do anything but irritate the hounds, so Rey tried her burgeoning Force abilities. She executed a well-timed Force push that caused the creature’s flightless wing to be skewered on Ben’s backswing. It howled a curse, and its brother responded.

The tuk’ata pressed forward, inching Ben and Rey out of the ritual chamber. Rey flinched as she touched the spiky tail of the dead beast. Ben raised an eyebrow; Rey shrugged. She shot a blaster again, this time into the gaping maw of a hound. Its tongue sizzled and it screamed, pawing at its face and rushing in mad circles. It was all too easy for Ben to slide his lightsaber into its gullet.

One left. Rey doubted she’d get another perfect shot down the throat of a Sith hound, but she kept a blaster in her off hand just in case. Ben was standing still, lightsaber at the ready. He wasn’t moving, so Rey decided to move the tuk’ata for him. A Force push sent the last hound flying into Ben’s saber. Ben fell to the ground beside it, shaking. He deactivated his saber and nudged it across the floor to her telekinetically. The beast was still alive. Something was wrong with Ben.

Rey thumbed the activator of the heavy lightsaber. Bathed in its red glow, she remembered Han’s hand touching his son’s face just before he fell. Rey lunged. She hacked with wide swings, slicing off the tail, a leg, a horn, and finally slitting the tuk’ata’s throat. She turned to see Ben, still lying on the floor, pale as the moon.

“Poison,” he whispered. “Their spikes. Fast and fatal.” His abdomen was gored.

Rey deactivated the saber and let it drop to the stone floor. She held up her hand. A single slash from a wound inflicted by a dead tuk’ata was oozing. She sat next to him. “Nothing on your ship?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I wonder why they were trying to push us out. It’s like they were guarding something,” he rasped. 

“Shall we use the time remaining to find out?”

“No,” Ben said. “Just sit with me until I…”

“Sleep,” Rey finished. “And I’ll sleep, too.”

So they did.

* * *

Everything smelled like antiseptic. 

Rey hated the smell of antiseptic. It reminded her of hospitals. She sat up and took stock of her location. Huh. She was in a hospital. That sucked. She hated hospitals. They smelled like antiseptic.

Wait.

She was in a hospital. Not a medbay, not with an MD-0, in an actual Earth hospital with a television and a shower that used water. She squealed.

A nurse rushed in at the sound. “You’re awake!” She was a short woman, blonde, wearing bright pink scrubs with little dogs on them.

“How long have I been out?” Rey asked. Her throat was raw from disuse; not a good sign.

“I have to ask you a few questions. Can you tell me your name?”

“Dr. Rey Jackson.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Er, the hospital? An American one, probably, from your voice.”

“Fair enough. Can you tell me what year it is?”

_ 34 ABY _ almost flew out of her mouth. She had a vague idea of what year she had left, and how, but what if, somehow, that’s not when she came back? “I-- actually, no. I don’t know.”

“Do you know who the President is?”

“Er…”

“It’s okay. It’s no trouble at all. We’ll ask you the same questions every day. It helps us get a baseline. Do you know why you’re here, Dr. Jackson?”

She furrowed her brow. No. She didn’t really. She thought to her most recent injury. “Poison?” She held up her hand; sure enough, the tuk’ata’s wound had left a mark.

“You were in a plane crash, Dr. Jackson, about--”

“Where’s Ben?!” She started to get out of bed, pulling her saline drip on the way. “Ben Solo. I need to know he’s okay.”

“I can’t give you information on any patients,” the nurse said calmly. “But I can certainly let someone know they’re being inquired after,  _ if  _ they’re a patient. If you get back into bed.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” 

“Part of the job,” the nurse said, shrugging. “I’ll page the doctor. She’ll be with you shortly and let you know what’s going on.” Rey nodded and watched her go.

She was alone. But not for long.

Before the doctor could come, before another nurse could come, Poe Dameron flew in, followed immediately by Jess Pava. For one cold moment Rey was afraid they wouldn’t remember her. She didn’t speak. Jess pounced on her.

“You magnificent girl,” she said. Her long black hair formed a curtain around them as they hugged. “You scared us so much. It was all over the news. This many dead, this many unaccounted for, this many alive, and they weren’t releasing any names and you know me, I worry, but Poe kept saying that thing he says about hope--”

“Hope is like the sun,” Rey interrupted. “If you only believe in it when you can see it…”

“...You’ll never make it through the night,” Poe finished, smiling. “It’s good to see you, Sunshine.”

Rey took a shaky breath.  _ They’re my friends _ . “It’s good to see you guys, too. Do you-- do you know what happened?”

Jess climbed into bed with Rey and held her. Rey stroked her arm. Poe pulled a chair close and raked a hand through his hair. “It’s classified,” he said, “and I could be demoted-- or worse-- for letting it out.”

“They have no idea,” Jess said. 

Poe flushed. ‘Classified’ clearly did not include panicked fiancees. “Right. Everything they’ve looked at so far is in perfect working order. Black boxes just cut off in the middle of a conversation about some action movie. Plenty of fuel. But the coordinates don’t match up.”

“What do you mean?” Rey asked.

“Where the plane stopped transmitting a signal is incredibly far from where you were found. Finn’s going on about the Bermuda Triangle.”

Rey forced a laugh, remembering Luke’s letter. “Any merit to that theory?”

“I mean, you were in the Bermuda Triangle when you disappeared, but out of it when you crashed,” Jess said.

“Not you too, Pava!” Poe groaned.

“I’m just saying. And it’s on Reddit.”

“So it has to be true? Jesus. Well, better to spread that nonsense than the truth for now. Keeps me out of trouble.”

“Was I hurt badly?” Rey asked, changing the subject.

“That’s the weird thing,” Poe said. “You had a badly fractured patella and a dislocated shoulder. They set the shoulder in triage, I think. But the patella--”

“That’s your knee,” Jess supplied. 

“Your patella,” Poe continued with a sigh, “healed itself. Or that’s what it looks like.”

Rey remembered rolling her shoulder as she held onto her seat belt, twisting unnaturally as she went from upside down to right side up. She remembered banging her knee so badly that it hurt to bend and straighten. She remembered a droid poking and prodding and applying bacta patches. Had that transferred across space and time? It must have.

“Probably mixed up my X-rays with someone else’s,” Rey said. She shrugged the shoulder Jess wasn’t lying on. 

“Bermuda Triangle magic,” Jess muttered. Rey laughed. Poe rolled his eyes. “You’re smelly.”

“She’s been comatose and having sponge baths for almost two weeks,” Poe said. “You’ll have to forgive her.”

Two weeks? Time must have moved similarly in the other galaxy as it did here. She spared a quick thought for Other Rey, her unknowing captor. Was she okay? How was she dealing with her Luke’s death?

Luke. The letters!

“Did they find anything on me?” Rey asked hurriedly, frantically. “Any papers?”

“They were practically shoved down your pants,” Jess said, stifling a giggle. She poked Rey on the nose. “Finn has them. He took them back to your apartment.”

“He didn’t read any of them, did he?”

Jess, excited, breathed one long laugh. “He took out exactly one. It was addressed to him. Can you believe that? It said something like ‘mind your own business’. I wouldn’t have believed him if Rose hadn’t said it was true.”

“It’s not true,” Poe said, irritated. “They’re playing a joke on you.”

“Finn can’t troll to save his life and Rose doesn’t lie.”

The nurse came in, resplendent in her puppy dog scrubs, and Poe took that as the cue to leave. With a promise to visit again the next day, the couple departed.

“I just wanted to let you know that Mr. Solo has asked to see you. I can wheel you down any time you like.”

“Now?”

“Okay. Oh! Just a sec.” She walked to a whiteboard by the television. It had a space for the date, the doctor’s name, and a nurse’s name. In the line for her own name, the nurse wrote RN: Mary D.  _ I’m being treated by another MD _ , Rey thought. The Force was weird.

Rey was wheeled down a series of halls and up one floor to Ben Solo’s room. She was instructed to stay in her chair and call for a nurse when she was ready to return to her own room. Mary D. left with a smile.

Ben laid in the dark, alone. The television was airing the local news, but it was muted.

“I had to send my parents away,” he said, not looking at her. “They were hovering. I need to know that it was real. That you were there at the end, fighting the tuk’ata with me.” Rey held up her hand, revealing a purple stain where the Sith hound’s spike had scraped her. Ben used the remote attached to his bed to turn up the lights. Nodding, he continued. “I don’t know how much was me and how much was him. You-- or she-- kept asking if I was sorry. The answer was always no. The answer is still no. If I hadn’t done those things, I’d have never ended up on Korriban. I’d have never fought those things with you and we wouldn’t be home now. You called changing things a ‘pressure’, but you thought it had to be done kindly. You were wrong. 

“Change is violent. You saved the other Rey only because she was drowning. You couldn’t have split without the violence of that. Kylo Ren thought he was becoming Darker with violence, but every time he killed someone he became more like Ben Solo before he ‘fell’. If he hadn’t killed his father, if he’d let Snoke keep controlling him, he would have become more Kylo Ren. I think I would have ended up like you: stuck, looking and unable to do anything but see. Violence saved me and the other Ben. He’ll join the other Rey; he already cares for her. When you asked if I was going to kill you, he felt sick.”

Quiet. The buzzing of machines. The flicker of the television. A sky turning cloudy outside the window.

“How did you feel?” Rey asked.

Ben smiled a little. “Angry. Also a little sick.” He turned to face her, wincing. “He’s not the only Ben who cares about a Rey.”

She looked at her hands. “Maybe she isn’t the only Rey who cares about a Ben.” Before he could respond, she asked, “How is it you’re still injured? My injuries healed here at the same time as they did there.”

“I was just gored by a legendary Sith monster, remember? I got mysterious internal bleeding last night and had emergency surgery. It was the only problem I’ve had here. Uh, aside from the coma.”

“I had broken bones heal of their own accord.”

“The Force is weird.”

“Don’t I know it.”

An awkward silence fell between intimate strangers. A rumble of far-off thunder shook the window.

“Would you maybe want to get dinner sometime?” Ben asked shyly.

“I have a few conditions,” Rey said seriously. “It can’t be fancy and you can’t wear board shorts.”

He laughed until he winced. “Deal.”

* * *

Several weeks later, Rose helped Rey pick out a blue sundress. “Always wear blue on a first date,” Rose said sagely.

Rey hardly felt like this was a first date. She’d known Ben for months now, talking and texting and Face Timing. Plus there was that whole…  _ thing _ . The two weeks that they didn’t like to discuss much. She, through Other Rey’s eyes and ears, had learned about him. He had only a couple days with the actual her before…  _ that _ . Theirs was a relationship built on Earth, and that suited Rey just fine.

She walked to a little bistro not far from her apartment. Ben was already waiting, sitting at a wrought iron table on the patio, wearing dark jeans and a polo shirt. She nearly ran to him; she’d been in Turkey since her release from the hospital and hadn’t seen him in ages. She stopped herself, slowed her pace. She didn’t want to seem desperate, and she didn’t want their first real physical embrace to be in public. She’d held his hand in the hospital, kissed him on the cheek, but that was it. She wanted more, just not in a crowded restaurant.

He pulled out her chair for her, which made her blush.

“How’s the dirt in Turkey, Movie Star?” he asked. She rolled her eyes at the nickname.

“It’s about to be mud. The rainy season came early. That’s why I’m back so soon. How’s business in the business world, business boy?”

He curled his lip. “Ugh. Politics have people freaking out, which makes the stock market crazy, which makes my work load insane.”

“I still say your mother should run for President, calm things down. I’d vote for her.”

“You’re not a citizen,” Ben pointed out.

“I’d still vote for her.”

“Oh my God!” someone squealed. A teenage girl ran up to Rey, cell phone at the ready. “Are you that--”

“No,” Rey said curtly. “I’m not. I get confused with her sometimes, but I’m not her. I’ve never been in a movie, on telly, or in a commercial.”

She was done being  _ that girl from the movies _ . No freebies were worth it, no airline upgrades, no press trolling. She had lived someone else’s life, and it hadn’t been fun. It hadn’t been an escape. It had been a prison. She was Dr. Rey Jackson, archaeologist, and that was enough. More than enough, it was pretty damn good.

* * *

“Walk me home?”

They strolled hand in hand as twilight descended. The city was loud around them-- cars screeching and honking, people talking, stereos and televisions blasting-- but they were quiet. All of it faded to white noise as Rey laid her head against Ben’s arm, pulling him closer. When they reached her building, her eyes met his, searching, asking a silent question. He nodded once.

She didn’t ask if he wanted something to eat or drink. She pushed him onto the sofa and straddled his lap, dress riding up her thighs. His hands rested on her hips.

“Yeah?” Rey asked.

“Yeah.”

She dug her fingertips into his shoulders as she pulled him closer, wrapped her arms around his neck. She felt him shifting beneath her, kicking off his shoes. She ground against his moving hips, eliciting a groan. Rocking just a little, she felt him begin to harden in his jeans. 

She kissed him, slow and languid, her tongue sliding into his mouth effortlessly. His hands tightened on her hips, tried to hasten her pace, but she stilled completely. He almost whined into her mouth. She bit his lower lip gently and shushed him. She moved again, slower than before, rubbing herself against his growing erection. His hands wandered from her hips to her thighs, up her skirt, and onto her ass. She let him pull her closer, let him tug at her panties. She smirked against his pretty lips; he couldn’t get them off of her while they were in this position, and she rather liked teasing him. 

All at once he pulled away-- his mouth, his hands-- leaving them connected only by her arms around his neck. She looked at him, his dark eyes wild, his lips red, and felt him slowly unzip her dress. His hands wandered the plane of her back, running up to her neck and down again. She tried to kiss him, but he pulled away. He tugged at her dress. She rolled her eyes but disentangled from him and let him pull it over her head and toss it to the floor. He leaned forward to take a nipple in his mouth.

“No,” Rey said. “Switch me spots. And you have to take off your shirt, too.”

She rolled off of him and sat primly on the couch, though she didn’t cover herself. Her eyes didn’t leave Ben’s as he removed his shirt and the white t-shirt beneath it.  _ Christ, he’s big _ , Rey thought. She greedily examined his muscles, his broad chest, the thin line of hair leading from his belly button into his jeans.

He got on his knees before her, and this--  _ this  _ was what she needed. Someone looking up and seeing her, just her, and wanting her for who she was. He rasped her name and the sound shot straight to her core. He seemed to sense what she wanted, and maybe he did. He reached one trembling hand out to stroke the side of her breast, then let his fingers brush over the already-pebbled rosy nipple. She lifted her hips when he touched the waistband of her panties. They joined the rest of the clothes on the floor. He pulled her to the edge of the couch and wrapped her legs over his shoulders. She shuddered when he nipped her inner thigh.

Keys jingled in the doorknob.

“Oh, fuck!” Rey swore. She jumped up and started scooping clothes from the floor.

“Well, not out here,” Ben said, twisting his lips. Rey swatted him on the arm and dragged him to her room.

She slammed the door behind her. “Take off your pants,” she said. She flipped on the overhead light and threw all of the blankets off of her bed. “Fast.”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered, smiling.

Someone rapped on the bedroom door. Rey indicated that Ben should keep undressing. 

“Hey, Peanut?” Finn said from the other side of the door. “There’s a pair of underwear out here that aren’t Rose’s and definitely aren’t mine, so can you come grab ‘em real quick? They’re in the middle of the room.” 

Rey didn’t answer.

“It’s really distracting.”

Rey didn’t answer.

“Peanut?”

Rey opened her mouth to answer, but Finn had already opened the door. “Jesus fuck, Finn, we’re busy!”

He slammed the door. “I can see that! Oh shit, your underwear are in the living room? Were you having sex in the living room? We eat popcorn in there! That’s a wholesome community space!”

As Finn’s tirade continued, Rey and Ben couldn’t help but laugh. They got dressed, though Rey put on pajamas, and left the bedroom. Once in the living room, Finn’s sacred domain, Ben scooped up Rey’s panties and shoved them in his front pocket. “Souvenir,” he said, shrugging.

Rey shook her head. “Finn, Rose, this is Ben. I won’t be having sex with him tonight.”

“I’m so sorry!” Rose exclaimed. “I tried to keep Finn out longer, but he said he wasn’t feeling well. Nice to finally meet you, Ben.”

“Likewise,” Ben replied with a tight smile. “Your boyfriend, not so much.”

Rey could see the gears in Ben’s head turning. Finn, from the Other Place, who had caused him such trouble there, was causing him trouble now. He was thinking what she had thought: how many people were connected by the Force? Not just to the Other  _ Place _ , but to one another? She put her hand on his arm. “I know,” she whispered. “I think about it, too.”

“Walk me out?” he asked. She nodded. They held hands in quietude on the way to the street. He ordered a Lyft.

“Can I wait with you?”

He leaned against her building, drawing her close to him. “We never talk about it. Why don’t we ever talk about it?”

“I thought you didn’t want to.”

He kissed the crown of her head. “I thought you didn’t want to.” He inhaled the night air deeply. “I use it sometimes. The Force. It helps remind me that everything was real.”

“I use it, too. It’s convenient. And it’s peaceful, don’t you think? When I’m alone, I just breathe and I can sense so much. I’m connected to so much.”

“I never learned to use it peacefully,” Ben said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again. “Will you teach me?”

Rey’s face broke into a smile. “Of course.” She kissed him as his car pulled up. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Count on it.”

* * *

Rey closed the door and locked the deadbolt. She put her hand to her tingling lips.

“Somebody’s got it bad,” Rose sang from the couch. Rey grinned. 

A knock. Had Ben forgotten something?

Rey looked out the peephole and smiled.

“Hello, Leia,” Rey said, welcoming Ben’s mother in. “Are you here about the job?”

They had become fast friends, this worried mother and the girl who cared for her son. Their friendship was easy, like intuition. When Rey flew to Turkey for a few weeks of excavation, she and Leia had texted and played Words With Friends. It was a different sort of relationship than she’d ever had before, pseudo-maternal with no shortage of childlike whimsy. 

Leia was the only person who knew what had truly happened when the plane went down. Rey didn’t share Ben’s story-- that was his to tell-- but she had relayed her own experiences to Leia alone. She was the closest link to Luke, and Other Leia had been so understanding when she’d arrived. Rey needed to talk; enter Leia. 

“That too,” Leia said. “How was your date? I waited around the corner for my son to leave. He took his sweet time.”

Rose snort-laughed. Leia glared at Rey knowingly, daring her to say something revealing.

“He was very gentlemanly. Pulled my chair out and everything.”

“Good. Now, the job. I don’t know what Luke told you. There wasn’t much to tell when he passed, but I know he wrote those little prophecies. Long story short, we’re a loose confederation. Luke used to be the linchpin; that’s on me now. I can’t do it alone anymore, not while maintaining my career and my sanity. You have more experience than anyone that we know of, and you can detect others like you. You can use your skills and resources as an archaeologist to do what my brother did: travel and gather information about the Force throughout the world. You can teach others. Rey, will you help us?”

“First let me correct you about something,” Rey said. “I don’t have the most experience. Ben does. I won’t say more than that. I think that any Force-based investigations would benefit from his input. Tonight was the first time we’ve talked about any of it since we were in hospital, so he may take some convincing. It’ll be worth it, though. I have Other Rey’s memories, her muscle memory, but she was barely trained in the Force. What Ben has will be so much more beneficial. But yes, I’ll take the job.”

A small cough drew their attention. Rose was on the couch, a bowl of popcorn in her lap. “So, um,” Rose said, voice high and squeaky. “What’s the Force?”

* * *

Rey pulled the broom to her hand telekinetically. She swept the shards of broken pottery and clumps of potting soil into a pile. At least the flower had survived. She gingerly picked up the blossom and put it into a similar pot, packing it full of soil. She supposed it was only normal for things to break during a move. Still, she wished she’d stop dropping so many breakable things.

They were moving in together. It shouldn’t have made her nervous, but it did. She was already practically living at his place, but this was different. This was a cottage that they’d picked out together, one that had all of the things they wanted. A place for things to grow, a space to exercise, and an extra bedroom just in case. Their little house by the sea made them feel like they’d moved forward as a couple and as individuals.

They had guests frequently. Her friends, his friends, couple friends, and, of course, Leia dropped in often. They were notoriously bad hosts. Rey couldn’t cook and Ben didn’t like to. Rey wanted a noisy home; Ben literally told people to get out of his house when he was tired. The seaside cottage was, in general, a place full of laughter and joy. It radiated love.

At night, when Ben was snoring and moonlight stole through the curtains and onto his face, Rey would trace his scar. She would remember a night in the snow, a fight, and two people making desperate choices. She would spare a quick thought for Other Ben and Rey. She sometimes wondered if they were together, or happy, or both. The moment always passed swiftly. She would kiss Ben’s scar beneath the eye and curl up next to him. She didn’t have time to wonder about someone else’s happily ever after. She was too busy living hers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tulak Hord](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tulak_Hord).  
> [Tuk'ata](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tuk'ata).  
> For good measure, because it was my inspiration, [an article about Gobekli Tepe](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/). I was also inspired by Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane (mentioned in Ch. 1).
> 
> Many thanks to silvander, my emotional support human.  
> As always, super thanks to [ The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology](https://reylofanfictionanthology.tumblr.com) for their hard work and general awesomeness.
> 
> QueenOfCarrotFlowers, I hope I created something you enjoyed.
> 
> Now, a question! Which Rey and Ben do you guys think have a seaside cottage? There are syntax clues throughout the story. Happy hunting **;)**  
>  Please let me know what you thought! Leave a contribution in the little box or hop on over to [my tumblr](https://maq-moon.tumblr.com)!


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